Everything Science Forum

Allard Beutel
Headquarters, Washington                       May 21, 2004
(Phone: 202/358-4769)

Jessica Rye
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(Phone: 321/867-2468)

SPACE SHUTTLE PROCESSING STATUS REPORT: S04-12

     The Space Shuttle fleet is housed and processed at
NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla. The order the Space
Shuttles are listed in this report does not necessarily
reflect the chronological order of future missions.

Discovery (OV-103)

Processing of Discovery continues in the Orbiter Processing
Facility (OPF) for its Return to Flight mission, STS-114, to
the International Space Station (ISS). Following the
installation of the left-hand Orbital Maneuvering System pod
on the vehicle, technicians began installing the thrusters.

The Forward Reaction Control System is scheduled for delivery
to the OPF early next week. The four Rudder Speed Brake (RSB)
actuators and panels have been reinstalled on the vehicle
following a complete inspection, bead blasting and painting
of the panels. Bead blasting is a process using a pressurized
pneumatic gun containing silica carbide, plastic pellets or
glass beads to remove primer, paint and corrosion from
orbiter vehicle surfaces.

Atlantis (OV-104)

Atlantis was powered up in support of mission processing for
its future flight to the ISS. The four RSB actuators were
removed from the vehicle and X-rayed at the Titan X-ray
Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. All four
actuators showed the gears were assembled in the proper
orientation. At the vendor, the actuators are undergoing a
complete inspection.

Thermal Protection System blanket installation continues on
Reinforced Carbon-Carbon nose cap. The nose cap was removed
from the vehicle and sent back to the vendor for thorough
Non-Destructive Engineering evaluation and recoating. The
blankets are being reinstalled prior to technicians re-
hanging the nose cap on the vehicle.

Endeavour (OV-105)

Endeavour is in its Orbiter Major Modification period, which
began in December 2003. Electrical modifications continue in
the crew module. Wire inspections are ongoing in the
Environmental Control and Life Support System bay.

Right-hand radiator No. 1 installation is scheduled for
today, with right-hand radiator No. 2 scheduled for no
earlier than the middle of next week.
Previous Space Shuttle processing status reports are
available on the Internet at:

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/status.htm

For information about NASA's Return to Flight efforts on the
Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/highlights/returntoflight.html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the
Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


-end-

Allard Beutel
Headquarters, Washington              June 10, 2004
(Phone: 202/358-4769)

June Malone
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256/544-0034)

RELEASE: 04-190

SUCCESSFUL TEST LEADS WAY FOR SAFER SHUTTLE SOLID ROCKET
MOTOR

     NASA's Space Shuttle program successfully fired a full-
scale Reusable Solid Rocket Motor today, testing
modifications that will enhance the safety of the Space
Shuttle.

A slightly different propellant grain was tested. The new
design improves flight safety by decreasing the risk of
cracks in the propellant during storage and transportation,
according to Jody Singer. Singer is manager of NASA's
Reusable Solid Rocket Motor Project, Space Shuttle Propulsion
Office, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

"Even though the modification is only a slight change from
what we have flown on the Shuttle, it still requires a
rigorous certification and verification process that includes
testing," said Mike Rudolphi, manager of the Space Shuttle
Propulsion Office. "NASA has long adhered to the maxim, 'Test
what we fly; fly what we test,'" added Rudolphi. "This test
is one in a series of tests performed to ensure this
modification will perform as we expect," he said.

The propellant grain modification is one of 76 test
objectives. Twenty-four of the objectives allow the Project
Office to reevaluate materials, components and manufacturing
processes in use, such as nozzle bondlines, liner-to-housing
bondlines, internal insulation, pressure transducers, and
solvents.

The test will also provide information on a proposed safety
enhancement to the motor's nozzle. A new bolted assembly on
the nozzle's joint 5 is being tested for strength.

The full-scale stationary test was performed at ATK Thiokol
Propulsion Division, an Alliant Techsystems Inc., company in
Promontory, Utah. ATK Thiokol manufactures the Space
Shuttle's Reusable Solid Rocket Motor.

Static firings of flight support motors are part of the
ongoing verification of components, materials and
manufacturing processes required by the Space Shuttle
program. Flight support motors are tested annually to
evaluate, validate and qualify any proposed improvements or
changes to the motor. The two-minute test duration is the
same length of time that the motors perform during Space
Shuttle flights. The motor is one of the four Shuttle
propulsion elements.

Data from the test will be analyzed and the results for each
objective provided in a final report. The flight support
motor's metal case segments and nozzle components will be
refurbished for reuse.

This is the second test motor firing in less than a year for
the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor Office. A five-segment
engineering test motor demonstrated in October 2003 pushed
the motor to its limits so engineers could validate the
safety margins of the four-segment motor used to launch Space
Shuttles.

At 38.4 meters (126 feet) long and 3.6 meters (12 feet)
diameter, the Space Shuttle's Reusable Solid Rocket Motor is
the largest solid rocket motor ever flown and the first
designed for reuse. The motor has four 30-foot segments
filled with propellant. During liftoff, each motor generates
an average thrust of 1.2 million kilograms (2.6 million
pounds).

For information about NASA's work to return Space Shuttles to
safe flight on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/highlights/returntoflight.html


-end-


                     

Shuttle's Spring 2005 Launch Date Delayed
By PAM EASTON, AP

HOUSTON (Oct. 2) - The first shuttle flight since the Columbia tragedy has been pushed back by NASA because hurricane damage and implementation of new safety measures made a spring 2005 launch ''no longer achievable.''

March or April had been the tentative date selected by NASA's spaceflight council, which announced the delay Friday.

The council, in Houston to discuss the Oct. 14 launch of the next international space station crew from Kazakhstan, asked shuttle program officials to analyze whether a May or July date is more feasible, and to report back to their findings later this month, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said.

Council members decided to rethink the launch date of Discovery because of damage caused by the hurricanes in Florida and NASA's promise to implement new safety measures for the shuttle program.

The hurricanes cost three weeks of shuttle-processing time, said James Kennedy, director of Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

In late August and early September, rain and high winds accompanying Charley and Frances caused widespread damage to NASA's launch site. Hurricane Jeanne later blew off 30 exterior panels from the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building.

The threat of Hurricane Ivan temporarily halted work on Discovery's redesigned external fuel tank at Lockheed Martin Corp.'s assembly plant in New Orleans, Beutel said.

The agency's three space shuttles themselves made it safely through the storms.

Yep, that's not surprising - they were tight as it was on that spring launch date.

If they had not immediately rolled the target back, THAT would have scared me.

Anybody care to bet on when the orbiters are retired?  Fairly obvious it isn't going to happen in 2010.  I doubt it will be before  2012 at the earliest.  With maintenance periods, I don't see more than four flights a year average absent any fleet standowns for inspections like the LH2 line cracks a couple of years ago.  I think that at least one of these standown events is virtually certain given the program history, and three to four would not surprise me in the least.  I'll bet that 4 flights in a given 12 month period might happen once in four years if we are VERY lucky.

There remain 8 flights to U.S. "core complete", plus another 8 flights carrying additional modules and equipment for Japan, Europe, Russia, and the U.S. - and that is ignoring logistics flights, which will need to occur unless additional ATV flights are purchased.  In the short term, say five years or so, I don't know that it is even possible to ramp the ATV flight rates up, even if U.S. funding were available right now for this - which it isn't!

So, figure a very conservative 4 MPLM flights beyond "core complete"  in addition to the 16 flights to get committed payloads flown.  20 flights, commencing in the third quarter of 2005 if the gods smile.  I'm going to throw out this as a guesstimate...

2 flights in 2005
(Though I have my doubts - note that the second flight's ideal launch interval post STS-114 will be in the hurricane season now that STS-114 has been rolled into midsummer.)

3 in 2006

3 in 2007

4 in 2008 (I threw in one year where everything goes right and two flights are managed with the first orbiter that flies that year)

3 in 2009

3 in 2010

2 in 2011

 Factor in tighter and more numerous inspections, added components like the ET heater and impact sensors in the RCC, a declining work force,  more restrictive constraints on launch conditions, and further aging of the orbiters, and you can bet that at least two of those flight years drops by 1 flight.  I think that is reasonable and will be astounded if things don't roll back even more.  I think the middle of 2012 is the earliest fleet retirement date I'd be willing to bet on.

Comments?

Jim 

The shuttle utilization may also depend on what happens with the ISS.  Will it be completed with all the modules?  There will certainly be pressure to get the foreign modules up and the remaining core.

I think the schedule proposed by Skyjim is realistic given recent history.

The agreement that came out of the partner conference (in July, I believe) committed to US core complete plus flying Kibo, the Kibo logistics module and exposed facility, Columbus, the Science Power Platform, Node 3, the Cupola, and the express pallets and "Canada hand".  Those are the source of the 8 flights I mentioned for post "core-complete".  Looks on more careful consideration like it's going to be 9 flights exclusive of MPLM /crew rotation missions, which might be at least partially replaced by added ATV flights if that is negotiated. I forgot the Centrifuge Module, which would make 9!

I used this manifest:

 http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/future/index.html

I think that at least the first two MPLM flights beyond "core complete" - ULF-2 and UF-3 will be slam-dunks given the time it would take to get more ATVs into the pipeline, and the need to rotate lab racks from the three labs.  Remember, ATV has no recoverable downmass, so it won't totally replace the MPLM functions. Some lab racks are designed to be refurbished and reflown, a capability which would be lost absent shuttle logistics flights.  The bulkier ones won't even fit through the smaller hatches in Zvezda and  the PMA's and shuttle docking adapter, so careful planning will be required to maximize lab return while the MPLMs are still available.

It's going to be an interesting juggling act.

Jim

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3967045.stm

may-june?

October 30, 2004 - NY Times
Test Flights for Shuttle Could Begin Next Spring
By WARREN E. LEARY
 
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - NASA officials said on Friday that the space shuttle Discovery could take off for the International Space Station in May or June in the first of two test flights aimed at resuming normal shuttle operations.

The space agency had hoped to launch the Discovery in mid-March, but was forced to abandon that date after hurricanes in August and September damaged buildings and other facilities at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and temporarily closed the New Orleans plant where the shuttle's main fuel tank is prepared.

Shuttle managers then had to decide whether to aim for May or June or to wait until the summer. But on Friday, after meeting with other officials, William F. Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, said in a telephone news conference that "we're as confident as we can be" in the plan to launch the Discovery between May 14 and June 3.

The shuttle fleet - Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour - has been grounded since the re-entry accident on Feb. 1, 2003, that destroyed the Columbia and killed its crew of seven. Since then, the managers have been seeking to comply with the recommendations of an independent panel that was set up to monitor a safe return to flight.

Mr. Readdy said the remaining challenges included, "first and foremost," making and testing the shuttles' redesigned main fuel tanks. Insulating foam fell from a tank and damaged the Columbia on takeoff, leading to its destruction almost two weeks later. Work to eliminate critical debris falling from the tank is going well, he said, and the first of the new tanks should be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center by the beginning of next year.

Michael Kostelnik, NASA's deputy associate administrator for the shuttle and space station programs, said that problems with a new 50-foot inspection boom had largely been resolved. Shuttles will carry the boom to look for damage during flights. Problems with vibration and anchoring the boom have been solved, Mr. Kostelnik said, and the agency has started manufacturing working units.

Work on a sensor package for the end of the boom, which is an extension of the shuttle's robot arm, also is progressing well, he said.

Mr. Kostelnik said NASA had begun an internal study to examine what kind of space station would result if fewer shuttle flights were used in building it. To complete the full station agreed upon by the 18 nations sponsoring the orbiting laboratory, he said, 28 shuttle flights would be needed.

He said that the United States would honor its international agreements concerning the project, but that it was prudent to look at alternatives to the 28-flight plan in case circumstances changed.
======================================
Meanwhile here is a picture of a re-entry of a Shuttle Main Tank.  Launched from Florida it burns up over Hawaii!

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/

a 10 part report on the shuttle return to flight

NASA Finishes Redesigned Shuttle Fuel Tank (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=3&u=/nm/20041228/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc)

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - NASA has finished building a redesigned space shuttle fuel tank that was reconfigured to eliminate the debris problem that doomed the shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts, agency officials said on Tuesday.

The first reconfigured tank is to be shipped by Friday from a NASA facility near New Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the space agency prepares for shuttle Discovery's launch in May or early June.

"We are very close. We can taste victory here on shipping the tank," said Sandy Coleman, external tank project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Meanwhile from NASA KSC:

STS-114 to Demonstrate Repair Techniques, Deliver Equipment to Space Station
The STS-114 crewmembers will deliver supplies to the International Space Station, but the major focus of their mission will be testing and evaluating new Space Shuttle flight safety, which includes new inspection and repair techniques.

STS-114 is classified as Logistics Flight 1. Among the Station-related activities are delivering new supplies and replacing one of the orbital outpost's Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs). STS-114 will also carry a Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and the External Stowage Platform-2.

The crew is slated to conduct at least three spacewalks while at the ISS. The first spacewalk will demonstrate repair techniques of the Shuttle's Thermal Protection System. During the second, the spacewalkers will replace the failed CMG with one delivered by the Shuttle. On the third, they will install the External Stowage Platform.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050106tankoffload/

"With the arrival of the External Tank, all of the elements of the Space Shuttle system are in place for Return to Flight,"

:D

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/08/Worldandnation/Astronauts_say_they_r.shtml

"Astronauts say they're ready but realistic"

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ft_sts114_update_050108.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4231121.stm#

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/space/3046919

15 May is the day! hopefully....

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050218optimistic/

Astronauts Look Forward to Hosting Shuttle

By Mikhail Antonov

STAR CITY, Russia (Reuters) - The next astronauts scheduled to blast off into space on a Russian craft said on Tuesday they were excited about hosting the crew of the first U.S. shuttle to launch for more than two years.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=2117&e=3&u=/nm/20050329/sc_nm/space_russia_dc

Shuttle Move Shifts NASA's Focus Toward Flight

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA passed a significant milestone in its two-year quest to return the shuttle fleet to flight when shuttle Discovery left its processing hangar early on Tuesday and made a quarter-mile journey to the assembly building.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=2117&e=5&u=/nm/20050329/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc

Slowly moving forward.  :1thumbup

NASA Acknowledges Space Shuttle Risks

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

SPACE CENTER, Houston - After a two-year struggle to keep big chunks of foam from coming off the shuttle fuel tank during launch, NASA acknowledged Tuesday even marshmallow-size pieces could doom the spacecraft under the worst circumstances

Shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore said it is a risk NASA and the nation must accept for flights to resume anytime soon.

It would take years and a total redesign of the fuel tank to completely eliminate foam loss and to ensure the 2003 Columbia tragedy would never be repeated, Muratore and other officials said.

NASA expects pieces of insulating foam no bigger than one or two marshmallows to break off the fuel tank when Discovery blasts off next month. Depending on where and when the pieces hit, they could cause catastrophic damage during re-entry, Muratore said.

By contrast, the size of the foam that shattered Columbia's left wing was the size of a carryon suitcase.

Discovery's on the pad.

Now that's a beauty!  :2thumbsup.gif:
 :koala

With the Space Shuttle Discovery now at the launch pad, workers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida successfully completed the next crucial step in the Space Shuttle's Return to Flight -- a tanking test of Discovery's redesigned External Tank.

Beginning Thursday (April 14) morning, ground crews filled Discovery's External Tank with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel to evaluate how all the systems perform under "cryo-load" -- the condition when the tank is filled with ultralow-temperature oxygen and hydrogen. Throughout the day, crews readied the orbiter's main propulsion system while the launch team took the opportunity to inspect hardware.

Another milestone in the Shuttle's Return to Flight was reached Thursday with the hatch closure of Raffaello, an Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module that will carry supplies and experiments to and from the International Space Station.

The Space Shuttle and its External Tank have undergone dozens of modifications in preparation for Return to Flight. The updates to the Shuttle system come in response to the Columbia accident and recommendations from accident investigators.

NASA Postpones Shuttle's Return to Flight by a Week (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6040-2005Apr20.html) (registration at Washington Post required)
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page A11

NASA yesterday postponed the target date for launching the space shuttle by a week, to May 22, to enable engineers to complete the analysis and review of critical changes made to the orbiter in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster.

Space shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said he and senior planners began discussing the delay a week ago, and recommended it at a Kennedy Space Center meeting Tuesday with Administrator Michael Griffin and other top NASA officials.

NASA Delays Post-Columbia Flight Again (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050429/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle)

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer (April 29, 2005) - 1147 EDT
 
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -     NASA on Friday delayed by another two months the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster, saying it needs more time to ensure that the fuel tank does not shed dangerous pieces of ice at liftoff.

Discovery is now scheduled for launch no earlier than July 13. The flight had been targeted for late May.

A large chunk of foam insulation from the external fuel tank punched a hole in Columbia's wing that led to the shuttle and crew's demise during re-entry in February 2003. Now, the lingering concern involves the possible buildup of ice on the tank once it's filled with super-cold fuel, and the hazard such shards would pose if they came off during the launch and hit the shuttle.

NASA's new administrator, Michael Griffin, announced the delay at a midmorning televised news conference, saying it was the result of recent launch-debris reviews.

The July window extends from July 13 until July 31. If Discovery does not fly in July, the next opportunity would come in September. The 12-day mission will supply much-needed supplies and replacement parts to the space station.

================
from NASA's Shuttle Page - April 29, 2005

Shuttle Launch Pushed Back

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced the decision to push back the launch date for the Space Shuttle's Return to Flight. Commander Eileen Collins and her STS-114 crewmates are now scheduled to launch no earlier than July 13. Discovery's launch window now extends to July 31.

Shuttle managers want to take a closer look at the External Tank attached to the Space Shuttle. They want to analyze the possibility of ice forming on the tank and take a closer look at the risk of debris falling off and hitting the Shuttle. Managers are considering rolling Discovery back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for further work and more tests.

Return to Flight activities continue on schedule for a launch window that extends from July 13 - 31.

Space Shuttle Discovery is now on its launch pad nestled within the Rotating Service Structure. The Space Shuttle will undergo final preparations and prelaunch tests to ensure a safe launch and readiness to fly. Discovery’s seven-member crew will test new hardware and techniques to improve Space Shuttle safety, as well as deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

End Of The Astro-Nots?
June 16, 2005

This story was written by John Derbyshire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like the monster in some ghastly horror movie rising from the dead for the umpteenth time, the space shuttle is back on the launch pad. This grotesque, lethal white elephant -- 14 deaths in 113 flights -- is the grandest, grossest technological folly of our age. If the shuttle has any reason for existing, it is as an exceptionally clear symbol of our corrupt, sentimental, and dysfunctional political system. Its flights accomplish nothing and cost half a billion per. That, at least, is what a flight costs when the vehicle survives. If a shuttle blows up -- which, depending on whether or not you think that 35 human lives (five original launchworthy Shuttles at seven astronauts each) would be too high a price to pay for ridding the nation of an embarrassing and expensive monstrosity, is either too often or not often enough** -- then the cost, what with lost inventory, insurance payouts, and the endless subsequent investigations, is seven or eight times that.

There is no longer much pretense that shuttle flights in particular, or manned space flight in general, has any practical value. You will still occasionally hear people repeating the old NASA lines about the joys of microgravity manufacturing and insights into osteoporesis, but if you repeat these tales to a materials scientist or a physiologist, you will get peals of laughter in return. To seek a cure for osteoporesis by spending $500 million to put seven persons and 2,000 tons of equipment into earth orbit is a bit like… well, it is so extravagantly preposterous that any simile you can come up with falls flat. It is like nothing else in the annals of human folly.

Having no practical justification for squirting so much of the nation's wealth up into the stratosphere, our politicians -- those (let us charitably assume there are some) with no financial or electoral interest in the big contractor corporations who feed off the shuttle -- fall back on romantic appeals to Mankind's Destiny. Thus President Bush, addressing the nation after the Columbia tragedy two years ago:

These men and women assumed great risk in this service to all humanity. In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the earth.

These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.

The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.

Anyone who finds it "easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket" just hasn't been following the shuttle program very attentively. One astronaut death per eight flights!

The rest of the president's address on that occasion was, to be blunt about it, insulting to the memories of the astronauts who died, and still more insulting to their grieving spouses, children, parents, and friends. If these astronauts believed that "they had a high and noble purpose in life," they were mistaken, and someone should have set them straight on the point.

Please note that "if." The motivation of shuttle astronauts would, I suspect, make a very interesting study for some skillful psychologist. Here is Ken Bowersox, one of the astronauts who was actually on board the International Space Station (steady now, Derb, husband your wrath) when Columbia blew up. He is writing in the June 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics, putting the "pro" case in a debate on the continuation of the Shuttle program, versus former NASA historian Alex Roland arguing the "con."

Bowersox:

I've wanted to be in space from the time I was listening to the radio and heard about John Glenn circling the earth. Columbia was the klind of blow that could have made me walk away from it. As astronauts, though, we wouldn't have been on the space station if we didn't believe in the program. Even after losing our friends and our ride home, we still believed that exploration was important.

Far be it from me to pull rank on Astronaut Bowersox, but I've wanted to be in space for somewhat longer than that -- since seeing those wonderful pictures by Chesley Bonestell in The Conquest of Space, circa 1952, or possibly after being taken to the movie Destination Moon at around the same time. The imaginative appeal of space travel is irresistible. I don't think I could resist it, anyway. Even with two young kids who need me, and a wife who (I feel fairly sure) would miss me, I would still, if given the opportunity to go into space tomorrow, be on the next flight to Cape Canaveral. As Prof. Roland says in that Popular Mechanics exchange: "The real reason behind sending astronauts to Mars is that it's thrilling and exciting." Absolutely correct. The danger? Heck, we all have to go sometime. As President Bush said, I am sure quite truly: "These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly…" It's the president's next clause I have trouble with: "…knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life."


Did they really know that? My experience of pointless make-work, which is much more extensive than I would have wished when starting out in life, is that people engaged in it know they are engaged in it. Whether they mind or not depends on the rewards. For a thousand bucks an hour, I'd do make-work all day long -- aye, and all night too! Astronaut salaries don't rise to anything like that level, of course; but there are rewards other than the merely financial. I hope no one will take it amiss -- I am very sorry for the astronauts who have died in the shuttle program, and for their loved ones -- if I quietly speculate on whether, being engaged in such a supremely thrilling and glamorous style of make-work, one might not easily be able to convince oneself to, as Astronaut Bowersox says, "believe in the program."

None of which is any reason why the rest of us should believe in it, let alone pay for it. There is nothing -- nothing, no thing, not one darned cotton-picking thing you can name -- of either military, or commercial, or scientific, or national importance to be done in space, that could not be done twenty times better and at one thousandth the cost, by machines rather than human beings. Mining the asteroids? Isaac Asimov famously claimed that the isotope Astatine-215 (I think it was) is so rare that if you were to sift through the entire crust of the earth, you would only find a trillion atoms of it. We could extract every one of that trillion, and make a brooch out of them, for one-tenth the cost of mining an asteroid.

The gross glutted wealth of the federal government; the venality and stupidity of our representatives; the lobbying power of big rent-seeking corporations; the romantic enthusiasms of millions of citizens; these are the things that 14 astronauts died for. To abandon all euphemism and pretense, they died for pork, for votes, for share prices, and for thrills (immediate in their own case, vicarious in ours). I mean no insult to their memories, and I doubt they would take offense. I am certain that I myself would not -- certain, in fact, that, given the opportunity, I would gleefully do what they did, with all the dangers, and count the death, if it came, as anyway no worse than moldering away in some hospital bed at age ninety, watching a TV game show, with a tube in my arm and a diaper round my rear end. I should be embarrassed to ask the rest of you to pay for the adventure, though.

** There are actually reasons to think we may have been lucky so far. News item: "Steve Poulos, manager of the Orbiter Projects Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston, acknowledges there is ‘a debate' inside the agency about the threat posed by space debris. One school of thought is that a fatal debris strike is ‘probable,' Poulos said. But he said others think such an event is likely to be ‘infrequent'." Uh-huh.

These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more. 

I am troubled by this statement.  The 'accident' should not have happened.  It was preventable, as was the first accident with Challenger.  The astronauts and the US public deserve better.  I am quite sure if the astronauts knew what was or wasn't on the minds, they might have refused to go.

Both accidents occurred because of bureaucratic indifference or arrogance, but the 'bureaucracy' did not do, the people who accepted management positions did.  It comes done to personal choice, which in the case of Challenger and Columbia was a mixture of conceit and denial.  And that makes me very angry :033102angry_1_prv.gif: , especially when it costs lives.

We might miss them, but certainly not as much as the parents, spouses, sibling and children of the astronauts.

STS-114
Return to Flight Mission
Launch Planning Window: July 13 - 31

Payloads Installed at the Launch Pad

Shuttle technicians have installed Discovery's payloads, including NASA's Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello into the Shuttle's payload bay. Other cargo includes a new Control Moment Gyroscope for the International Space Station and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System which will help the astronauts inspect the Shuttle's thermal tiles.

Discovery's crewmembers have completed training for their mission's first spacewalk in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. The crew also continued to review rendezvous procedures. The launch window for STS-114 runs from July 13 through July 31.

-----------------------------------------

STS-114 to Demonstrate Repair Techniques, Deliver Equipment to Space Station
The STS-114 crewmembers will deliver supplies to the International Space Station, but the major focus of their mission will be testing and evaluating new Space Shuttle flight safety, which includes new inspection and repair techniques.

STS-114 is classified as Logistics Flight 1. Among the Station-related activities are delivering new supplies and replacing one of the orbital outpost's Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs). STS-114 will also carry the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and the External Stowage Platform-2.

The crew is slated to conduct at least three spacewalks while at the ISS. The first spacewalk will demonstrate repair techniques of the Shuttle's Thermal Protection System. During the second, the spacewalkers will replace the failed CMG with one delivered by the Shuttle. On the third, they will install the External Stowage Platform.

Return To Flight Task Group -

http://www.returntoflight.org/

See the site for the latest activities on the Shuttle issues.

NASA Sets July 13 Shuttle Launch Date
Discovery to Take to Skies More Than Two Years After Columbia Disaster
By MARCIA DUNN, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 1) - NASA plans to blast into space on July 13 after more than two years on the ground, capping a series of safety modifications and delays since the shuttle Columbia broke apart in the sky, killing seven astronauts.

The agency said NASA's best minds have made the Discovery as safe as possible.

''We are being as smart about this as we know how to be, but we are up against the limits of our human knowledge,'' NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Thursday in pronouncing space shuttle Discovery ready for liftoff. ''If someone wants more, they're going to have to find smarter humans.''

NASA set the date after a two-day, high-level review of whether the craft is ready.

''Based on a very thorough and very successful flight-readiness review, we're currently 'go' for launch of Discovery on July 13,'' Griffin said.

Launch director Mike Leinbach said his team was celebrating with hearty backslaps. ''It's a great, great feeling to be less than two weeks from launch,'' he said.

Leinbach said his only worry, at least for now, is the seemingly nonstop stormy weather. As he addressed the late-afternoon news conference, thunder rumbled and rain poured down.

Earlier in the week, an advisory panel concluded that NASA failed to meet three of the 15 safety recommendations issued by the Columbia accident investigators in 2003. Despite many improvements, the shuttle is still vulnerable to pieces of foam or ice falling off the external fuel tank at liftoff, and the astronauts still have no reliable way of fixing damage to their ship's thermal shielding once in orbit, the group said.

But Griffin and others at NASA said they believe those risks have been reduced to an acceptable level. He said NASA did everything possible to make the fuel tank safer and developed rudimentary patches for Discovery's crew, in case of small holes in the shuttle's thermal skin.

''The proximate causes of the loss of Columbia have been addressed. Many other things which could have been of concern or would have been of concern have also been addressed,'' Griffin said. ''We honestly believe this is the cleanest flight we have ever done. The only other flight that will ever be cleaner is the next one.''

Griffin said spaceflight is always risky. ''We've done what we can do to minimize that based on the state of our knowledge today,'' he said.

Discovery will carry seven astronauts to the international space station, along with sorely needed supplies and replacement parts. If Discovery suffers irreparable damage en route, the astronauts will move into the station and await a rescue by the next space shuttle flight, Atlantis - a situation NASA considers an extreme last resort.

Griffin said he met on Thursday with Discovery's commander, Eileen Collins, and her crew, who told him they do not want NASA rushing but assured him they are ''go for launch.''

A large chunk of fuel-tank insulating foam smashed a hole in Columbia's left wing during liftoff in January 2003 and caused the shuttle to break apart during re-entry two weeks later. All seven astronauts were killed.

NASA's main focus following the accident was on keeping big pieces of foam from falling off the fuel tank. It was not until this past spring that engineers fully realized the dangers posed by ice, which can form on the tank once the super-chilled fuel is loaded. That prompted NASA to delay the mission from May to July and install another heater on the redesigned tank.

It's counting the days now... :)

With Hurricane Pounding Florida, Astronauts Arrive Early
Discovery Crew Will Be First in Space Since Columbia Disaster in 2003
By MARCIA DUNN, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 9) - The seven astronauts who will make the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster arrived early at the launch site Saturday, beating Hurricane Dennis by a day.

Commander Eileen Collins and her crew flew in by NASA corporate jet in the evening, and were greeted by Kennedy Space Center's director and nearly 100 journalists.

Less than five miles away stood space shuttle Discovery, being prepped for a Wednesday liftoff.

Ready for STS-114  :1thumbup   :2thumbsup.gif:   :koala

I hope they get outta here on Wednesday- now looking like yet another hurricane (Emily) will be making next weekend miserable.  :(

It's still go.

Discovery and its crew of seven were set to blast off at 3:51 p.m. EDT (1951 UTC) on a flight to the international space station.


The lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations.

No one knows why the cover - held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds - fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the windows while the shuttle is on the launch pad, then removed before liftoff.


Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare; Stilson called it a minor repair job.

Space agency managers held one last meeting Tuesday to address lingering technical concerns and later pronounced Discovery ready to fly.

"We have done everything that we know to do," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said afterward.

Discovery will be setting off on the 114th space shuttle flight in 24 years with a redesigned external fuel tank and nearly 50 other improvements made in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.


During their 12-day flight, Discovery's astronauts will test various techniques for patching cracks and holes in the thermal shielding.

The crew members also will try out a new 50-foot boom designed to give them a three-dimensional laser view of the wings and nose cap and help them find any damage caused by liftoff debris. That is on top of all the pictures of the spacecraft that will be taken by more than 100 cameras positioned around the launching site and aboard two planes and the shuttle itself.

This morning

Those photos give me goose-bumps.  Here's hoping for a safe voyage and a beautiful experience for those lucky souls aboard her!

Those photos give me goose-bumps.  Here's hoping for a safe voyage and a beautiful experience for those lucky souls aboard her!

They give me goosebumps too!

Nuts!  Standby, Houston!  Mission scratched - no new launch data yet. 

A faulty fuel gauge on Discovery's external tank forced NASA to call off Wednesday's launch of the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster 2 1/2 years ago. The space agency did not immediately set a new launch date. The decision came with less than 2 1/2 hours left in the countdown, as the seven astronauts were almost done boarding the spacecraft. Up until then, rain and thunder over the launch site appeared to be the only obstacle to an on-time liftoff.

 :oops

Better safe, than sorry.

Top pic - Closeup of Discovery on Pad39
Bottom pic - a reminder of how small we are!

You think with all of these delays that NASA would have got something right by now.  They have had more than enough time to do whatever they needed to get the Shuttle ready and allow everything to be in perfect working order.  Did you know that the Space Shuttle's initial design spec was to allow it to be flown every week?

Furthermore, with 114 missions flown, the majority of them have taken around a quarter of a year to prepare for while this one has taken more than a year since the first initial opportunity was March 11, 2004 after the CAIB report.  Come on!  The engineers at NASA are supposed to be the best and the brightest!  If they could get the vast majority of the last 113 missions working perfectly, then this one should not be so tough.  Of course they have made some revisions, but these revisions are supposed to improve things.

I am starting to get frustrated at these continued delays.  Besides, human space flight has hardly any scientific value anymore and is the most expensive part of NASA's budget.  NASA spends a huge portion of its $16 billion budget (give or take) on the Space Shuttle, International Space Station and related missions accounts for approximately half of NASA's entire budget with the rest being allocated to developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, Human/Robotic Technology, Exploration Missions and Aeronautics and Other Science Activities.

Robotic missions have proven to be the most scientifically "profitable" and thus I think robotic missions deserve a larger cut of the budget.  I think the Space Shuttle should be completely scrapped as well as the International Space Station for around ten years (it'll just float in space for a decade) and the money saved should go to progressing the development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle and funding propulsion research, life support research, exotic research (such as artificial gravity/simulated gravity), robotic missions, and etc.  After the Crew Exploration Vehicle is developed and flown on a few missions, the International Space Station can receive its budget again.

Just my thoughts.

, SpaceAstronomer

NASA should take as long as they need to sort out any problems. Rushing to launch is exactly what we don't need.

NASA should take as long as they need to sort out any problems. Rushing to launch is exactly what we don't need.

Rushing to launch?  They have had more than a year to prepare for this and do whatever they needed.  I am not saying they should rush it, but it is about time they got their butts in gear and got everything right?  They have had delays after delays.  I am not saying they should rush things, but they certainly shouldn't go at it at an snail's pace.  I am not saying that this current issue shouldn't be delayed, because it should, but I am saying that by now you would have thought NASA would have gotten everything sorted out and ready.  Heck, things should've been ready last month, but they weren't.

, SA

SpaceAstronomer - while I share the frustration over the shuttle program, Lunar Orbit is absolutely right.  NASA has to be safe.

The shuttle is one of the most complex pieces of technology that we have, and all those thousands of pieces have to work.

Hopefully we will get there soon - and safely.

The shuttle and ISS will be phased out, but while it works, we might as well use it.

CEV is not going to ready for a while.  ::)

 :koala

Well I am thinking that human space flight is unneccessary at the moment.  It is nothing but a monetary blackhole.  We are gaining nothing from it when we can always automatically launch satellites into space.  We have little to gain from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station scientifically.  I think the Shuttle fleet should be grounded to allow for an absence of humans in space for several years, like aforementioned in a previous post.

, marsbound2024

The way things have been going, that is true.  It seems ridiculous to build a lauch site (Kennedy) for cryogenic rockets in a environment as humid as Florida in the summer time.  But that's what we've got to deal with.  There's got to be a better way.

NASA Eyeing Cause of Fuel-Gauge Problem (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -   NASA technicians are hoping to get a better idea Thursday about whether they'll be able to fix a sensor problem at the pad or have to return the space shuttle Discovery to the hangar for more extensive repairs.

The problem with a fuel sensor forced managers to scrub Wednesday's planned launch, just 2 1/2 hours left in the countdown and further delaying NASA's return to space travel after the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Thousands of people had descended on Florida's     Kennedy Space Center for the launch, including families of the seven astronauts killed when Columbia disintegrated.

Similar fuel-gauge problems had cropped up during tests in April but technicians and officials thought they had been fixed.

Shuttle managers had no idea whether Wednesday's trouble was in the gauge at the bottom of Discovery's fuel tank, a stretch of cabling and wiring, an electronics box inside the shuttle or something else entirely.

And they found themselves on the defensive, explaining why they pressed ahead with the launch when the same type of potentially fatal problem cropped up during a fueling test just three months ago and was accepted as an "unexplained anomaly."

Some engineers had pushed for further testing at the pad before committing to a liftoff, but were overruled by top managers who concluded that the replacement of cables, the electronics box and the tank itself was ample.

"We felt like we had a good system," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said at a grim-faced news conference Wednesday.

more - NASA Eyeing Cause of Fuel-Gauge Problem (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050714/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle)

I guess that the basic reasons for having the launch pads at Cape Canaveral are that it is about as far South as US territory goes, allowing for maximum boost from the Earth's rotational velocity for an eastward launch, and the fact that spent stages can drop into water for such a launch.

The humidity must be a problem for rockets with cryogenic propellants. A colder site has its own issues. Recall the freezing temperatures and the first shuttle disaster, almost 20 years ago.

IMO if it weren't for the ISS, there would not be as much hurry to get the shuttle going again.

The Canaveral site was also chosen since there are not large populated areas downrange that would be endangered in a catastrophic failure.   The Texas coast could have also been a suitable site, but close to the Gulf of Mexico, it also has high humidity - and Florida is down range.  For dryness, West Texas would be great, but then the Texas coast and Florida are downrange of that location.

NASA Could Attempt Shuttle Launch Sunday  (Cross your fingers!)

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA said Thursday that it will not make another attempt to launch space shuttle Discovery until at least Sunday — and even that is a "really optimistic good-luck scenario."

Deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said the space agency still probably faces several days of troubleshooting to figure out what caused the faulty fuel-gauge reading that forced the cancellation of Wednesday's launch.

The only way the shuttle would be able to fly on Sunday is "if we go in and wiggle some wires and find a loose connection," said Hale, who conceded that was unlikely to work.

Wednesday's liftoff would have been the first shuttle flight in 2 1/2 years since the grounding of the space program after the Columbia accident. With little more than two hours to go and the astronauts on-board, the flight was canceled because a fuel gauge read full when it should have read empty.

Hale said the space agency had 12 engineering teams around the country trying to figure out why, but so far they haven't solved the problem.

"I wish I had more answers for you," he said.

He wouldn't rule out the chance of launching Discovery in July, and NASA officials have no immediate plans to move Discovery from the launch pad back to its hangar, which would require more days of delay.

NASA has until the end of the month to send the shuttle and its seven astronauts to space on their 12-day mission or it must wait until September. The launch timing is dictated by both the position of the space station and NASA's desire to hold a daylight liftoff so it can photograph the spacecraft during its climb to orbit and watch out for possible damage.

"I'm not ready to give up on a July window," Hale said. "We still have several days ahead of us."

On Wednesday, shuttle managers found themselves on the defensive, explaining why they pressed ahead with the launch when the same type of potentially fatal problem with the fuel gauges cropped up during a fueling test just three months ago and was accepted as an "unexplained anomaly."

The space agency requires all four of its hydrogen-fuel gauges to be working to ensure that the main engines shut off in space at just the right moment. If the engines shut down too soon or too late because of erroneous gauge readings, the results could be catastrophic. For instance, the engines could rupture if they kept running after the tank sprang a leak and ran out of fuel.

Some engineers had pushed for further testing at the pad before committing to a liftoff, but were overruled by top managers who concluded that the replacement of cables, the electronics box and the tank itself was ample.

However, even if NASA had conducted another fueling test in June, Hale said it's unclear whether the fuel gauge would have malfunctioned the way it did in a checkout test: Instead of showing an empty tank, the gauge kept showing full.

The delayed launch came just a day after an embarrassing turn for NASA, when a plastic cockpit window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged its fragile thermal tiles before the spacecraft had even taken off.

Wednesday's launch delay disappointed space buffs across the country. From Cape Canaveral, where congressmen and astronaut families had come to witness the awe-inspiring sight of a rocket launch, to museums coast to coast where schoolchildren had gathered, the postponement of the long-awaited return to space was disheartening.

"I wanted to see it really, really, really bad," groaned 8-year-old Michael Schamtin of Sherwood, Ore., who had waited for liftoff at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

When the shuttle finally does take off, the astronauts will test new techniques for inspecting and repairing cracks and holes similar to the damage that doomed Columbia in 2003.

In the 2 1/2 years since Columbia broke apart on its return to Earth, NASA has worked to fix its "safety culture," which the accident investigators concluded broke down during the flight.

NASA also has concentrated on making the external fuel tank safer by reducing the risk that foam insulation, ice or other debris will break off at launch. The gauge that caused trouble on Wednesday is in the external fuel tank, but was unrelated to any of the safety modifications.

OK - scrap Sunday -  :-\\

NASA's shuttle launch off till late next week

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) -  NASA said on Friday that the earliest it could launch the space shuttle Discovery on the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia accident would be late next week, after liftoff was postponed two days ago because of a technical problem.

The U.S. space agency said it had formally halted the countdown as engineers searched for the cause of the fault that prevented Discovery's launch.

"We are backing out, standing down from the countdown, which means the next launch attempt will be late next week at the earliest," a NASA spokesman told reporters. More details would be revealed at a news conference late Friday.

Discovery had been due to blast off on Wednesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the first shuttle mission since its sister ship Columbia broke apart over Texas in February 2003, killing the seven crew. But a faulty hydrogen fuel sensor forced NASA to call off the launch two hours before liftoff.

Early on Friday, technicians removed propellants from the shuttle's onboard power generators, NASA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said.

"Technically, in a perfect world and if there was an easy fix, we could get back into the countdown (Friday) night, but we need to let the teams go and figure out the problem and how to fix it," Rye said.

During a typical countdown, removing the onboard propellants would reset a shuttle's three-day launch countdown clock back to the starting position.

HYDROGEN SENSORS

NASA engineers still do not know why one of Discovery's four hydrogen sensors failed a routine test as the clock ticked down toward liftoff and the crew members, led by veteran astronaut Eileen Collins, were being strapped into their seats. Engineers are working through around 200 possible scenarios.

The sensors are designed to make the shuttle's three main engines shut down before fuel runs out.

A premature shutdown of the engines could force the spacecraft to make an emergency landing or prevent it from reaching its desired orbit.

Although launch delays are common, the glitches preventing Discovery from getting off the launch pad are receiving heightened scrutiny because the shuttle is the first to fly since NASA grounded the fleet for safety upgrades following the loss of Columbia.

Columbia's wing was damaged during launch by a piece of foam insulation that fell off its fuel tank. As it flew through the atmosphere for landing, superheated gases blasted into the wing and destroyed the ship.

NASA has until July 31 to launch Discovery, a deadline dictated by its planned rendezvous with the International Space Station and a new requirement that shuttle launches take place in daylight so cameras will have clear views of liftoff.

The next launch window begins on Sept. 9. NASA had planned to use the September launch window to fly the space shuttle Atlantis on the agency's second post-Columbia mission.

"I'm not ready to give up on the July window at this point," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said on Thursday. "We still have more than two weeks ahead of us, so that's the way we're headed."

He added, however, that flight planners already were trying to figure out if a three-day launch window in November could be expanded to accommodate Atlantis' flight if Discovery had to take the September launch slot.

Factors limit shuttle's launch times (Orlando Sentinel)

Fuel requirements and the sun's angle reduce the opportunities Discovery has to lift off.

By Robyn Shelton | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 15, 2005


The targeted window for Discovery's planned launch Wednesday ran from 3:51 to 3:56 p.m.  You might wonder: Why that particular slice of time?

NASA's launches are affected by many factors. One is the shuttle itself.

Because the ship carries a limited amount of fuel, Discovery needs to launch when it can reach its destination -- the international space station -- without running out.

To do this, NASA targets the launch within five minutes of the moment that Earth's rotation carries the shuttle's launchpad into the plane of the station's orbit.

Put another way: "It's when the shuttle can launch to reach the station with the available propellant," said NASA spokesman Rob Navias at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Because every shuttle now is going to the station, they all must lift off during those small windows of opportunity.

In the past, missions could have much longer windows if they weren't going to the outpost.

The good news is that there's a chance to fly to the station every day. The bad news is that many days are unusable for other reasons.

One potential problem is something engineers call the "beta angle," which refers to how the sun would hit the station and shuttle when they are joined together.

The shuttle can't get too much sunshine, and therefore too much heat, while it's docked at the outpost. So there are periods of time when the angle is unfavorable for a shuttle visit.

Other limitations come from new safety measures.

The space agency has imposed lighting requirements on at least the first two launches after the shuttle Columbia disaster. This means that the ship must fly in daytime so cameras can record the launch to check for any debris that might strike the shuttle.

In addition, the astronauts record the separation of the shuttle's tank once they reach orbit. To do so, the tank needs to be dropped on the sunlit side of Earth.

All these constraints limit the number of available launch days. For example, the entire month of August is ruled out because of the lighting requirements, Navias said.

Understand that I spent a long time on the shuttle program and loved the vehcile and the people who fly it - but after Columbia, I lost faith in NASA's ability to recognize flight safety issues before they kill crews.  Now there are memos leaking from supposed administration sources specifying only 15 more shuttle flights. 

OK, fair enough, though it strikes me as a half-measure.  I personally thought we should've grounded permanently after Columbia and spent the money on a cargo system for the remaining ISS hardware, jumpstarting the next human system,  and buying Soyuz, Progress, and ATV flights as gapfillers.  We'd be two years into that effort now, instead of staggering towards return to flight with aging issues still dogging us.

So, what can they do with 15 flights?  8 are needed to get to the so-called "core complete", with a completed power system/truss and Node 2 in place.  You need a flight to get Columbus up, THREE to get Kibo, it's logistics module, exposed facility, and RMS up, one for Science power platform arrays for the Russian segment and possibly one logistics flight can also boost the cupola.  I've heard something about the cancellation of the Centrifuge module (the one I personally thought was most relevant to deep-space mission design), but assume it goes up too, and you've used up all the remaining 7 flight slots without flying a Hubble servicing mission, which seems to be something Griffin wants to do. That is including ZERO MPLM flights among that 7, and kids, the ISS architecture relied on the MPLMs to get large equipment racks both up and down.   The administration is finally asking for some modification to the Iran Nonproliferation Act to allow purchase of Soyuz/Progress services.

SO - my question is, what gets dropped?  What can be transferred to Progress or ATV?  How much equipment already built cannot fit through the aft hatch of Zvezda  (or the PMAs in the U.S. segment) and would require an MPLM (or analog) to get it aboard the station?  How much smaller are those other hatches and mating adapters?  How much gear originally planned for return via MPLM is at risk of "stranding" since we obviously are not going to have the kind of downmass capability represented by several MPLM flights between now and the end of shuttle?  What chance is there of flying some items on other uncrewed systems?  Could ATV be adapted to dock with the lower node hatches by installing  a Kurs sytem on Node 2 and going to U.S. standard hatches and CBMs? 

Inquiring minds want to know! 

Jim

Is it possible that the flights are simply "contract fullfilment" missions.. without regard to whether they actually accomplish needed activities?

That is precisely my fear, Yale - just enough to physically put the modules up, not enough to actually derive any benefits from the investment they represent.  I don't think Kibo, Destiny, or Columbus can be fully utilized sans the kind of cargo capability  represented by those MPLMs.  But I'm not certain of my facts regarding how many racks for each were planned for transport via MPLM.  All I know is that it appears we are about to hang the partners out to dry here.

Looks like the transfer hatches on the Progress and ATV are 800mm in diameter.  Don't have a number yet for the big Node/lab hatches or the PMAs...

Jim

NASA Aims for Shuttle Launch Tuesday
By MARCIA DUNN, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 21) - NASA will try to launch Discovery on the first shuttle mission in more than two years next Tuesday, after tracing last week's fuel gauge failure to, most likely, an electrical grounding problem lurking inside the spacecraft.

Shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said Wednesday the only way to thoroughly check the system is to fuel Discovery and have all its equipment running.

''We believe the best way to go through this is to do a countdown,'' he said. ''If the sensors (gauges) work exactly like we think they will, then we'll launch on that day. If anything goes not per the plan that we've laid out in front of us, then we'll have a scrub and we'll have to talk about it.''

In what would be an almost certainly controversial move in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, NASA may also proceed with the liftoff if the fuel gauge problem recurs but is considered well understood. That would mean revoking a launch rule requiring all four hydrogen fuel gauges at the bottom of Discovery's external tank to be working properly, and instead relying on just three out of four.

That looser three-out-of-four rule was thrown out after the 1986 Challenger launch explosion.

The fuel gauges are intended to keep a shuttle's main engines from shutting down too early or too late after liftoff, both potentially disastrous situations. Only two of the four are needed to ensure safety, but ever since the Challenger accident, NASA has required all four to be operating.

Parsons said there are considerable ''safety nets'' to protect against launching a seriously flawed spacecraft, if an exception to the fuel gauge rule is made at the last minute.

''Right now, we think we have eliminated all the common causes that we believe could do this and we've done everything we possibly could on the vehicle,'' he told journalists at an evening news conference.

Technicians plan to swap some pins and wiring near the electronics box that is associated with the four hydrogen fuel gauges, to better understand what happened last week.

Discovery's countdown was halted with just two hours remaining before liftoff last Wednesday when one of the four fuel gauges malfunctioned. It was the same type of problem that marred a fueling test of Discovery back in April, with a different external tank.

Despite a week of exhaustive scrutiny by hundreds of engineers, NASA has been unable to pinpoint the precise cause or location of the failure, and an electrical grounding problem somewhere in the aft fuselage is considered the most likely cause. The space agency is holding out hope that the grounding problem can be traced to interference from shuttle equipment in the next few days, but will aim for a Tuesday launch even if the mystery persists.

Among the many shuttle parts suspected of possibly causing electromagnetic interference are newly installed heaters on the external fuel tank. The heaters are meant to prevent the kind of lethal damage suffered by Columbia at liftoff.

''We have a great amount of work in front of us to get us through this and get us ready,'' Parsons said. ''But we've all agreed that this work is doable and that it all takes us to a launch on the 26th.''

The countdown is set to begin Saturday for a Tuesday morning launch.

Discovery and its crew of seven will fly to the international space station to drop off supplies and make repairs, and will test inspection and patching techniques for the type of damage that doomed Columbia.

If Discovery isn't flying by the beginning of August, the flight will be bumped to September to ensure a daylight launch and good surveillance photography throughout the shuttle's ascent.

OK!  Despite my jaundiced view of the safety of the system (especially as operated by a NASA  hierarchy that I don't believe is CAPABLE of changing itself where shuttle ops is concerned) I'm paradoxically quivering with Go Fever as badly as anybody.   There is still hardware I touched in those SSMEs and I'll sweat ascent like I always do, especially that first 120 seconds - as I've said elsewhere, I really hate those damned SRBs!  I have huge confidence in the SSMEs.  (A bit prejudiced, I know, but they aren't going to fail with no warning!!)

Sounds like they may have a plausible scenario for the sensor glitch - and with the wiring swaps, they can hopefully confirm the location of the fault during tanking Monday night if it recurs.  If nothing acts funny, I'd be nervous, but as anybody who has ever chased ground faults in a complex electrical system can attest, you don't always see the same problem repeating itself.  Nothing makes one crazier than an intermittent glitch!  Hopefully everything is hunky-dory as soon as they turn off the new heaters, which would tend to confirm what appears to be their leading fault tree candidate mechanism.

This is precisely the sort of issue that we can expect to see more and more of until the end of shuttle ops, though. I don't think that any reliability numbers for the shuttle system mean anything at all given the demonstrated aging of the wiring and the huge number of potential faults that can develop.  We're not going to spend the money to gut the vehicles and rewire them completely - nor should we.  That leaves us likely facing many more glitches like this one over the next 5 years.    There are some which can wind up with an orbiter lost, sometimes in a survivable bailout situation for the crew, sometimes with catastrophic consequences like a Lox-rich shutdown of an SSME, the concern with the ECO sensors. 

Anybody remember Eileen Collin's FIRST mission as Commander?  That was the Chandra deployment mission, and a wiring short on Columbia damn near shut down 2 SSMEs right off the pad.  That was the incident that led to the fleet wiring inspections - though it has always been acknowledged that there was some wiring that was simply not accessible for physical inspection.  Had they lost even one SSME in the first few seconds of flight, that is generally an orbiter-in-the-ocean scenario.  Crew has to bail out, since ditching a shuttle has been shown to be non-survivable for them.  The payload and possibly the SSMEs and thrust structure are likely going to wind up impacting the crew compartment on deceleration even if the chines don't dig in and immediately tear the structure apart.

We're flying an aging, hideously complex system whose operational lifetime per orbiter was originally specified as 10 years or 100 flights.  Just because flight rates are low doesn't mean that things like wiring aren't degraded from environmental factors.  Even Endeavour is 13 years past her first flight and exceeding design operational age.  I fervently hope that we can keep slapping adequate fixes on problems as they are found - but I dread the reality that could slap us in the face at any time - a fatal accident from a previously unforeseen and unhinted-at fault that doesn't reveal itself in minor glitches first. 

Jim

OK!  Despite my jaundiced view of the safety of the system (especially as operated by a NASA  hierarchy that I don't believe is CAPABLE of changing itself where shuttle ops is concerned) I'm paradoxically quivering with Go Fever as badly as anybody.   There is still hardware I touched in those SSMEs and I'll sweat ascent like I always do, especially that first 120 seconds - as I've said elsewhere, I really hate those damned SRBs!  I have huge confidence in the SSMEs.  (A bit prejudiced, I know, but they aren't going to fail with no warning!!)

We're flying an aging, hideously complex system whose operational lifetime per orbiter was originally specified as 10 years or 100 flights.  Just because flight rates are low doesn't mean that things like wiring aren't degraded from environmental factors.  Even Endeavour is 13 years past her first flight and exceeding design operational age.  I fervently hope that we can keep slapping adequate fixes on problems as they are found - but I dread the reality that could slap us in the face at any time - a fatal accident from a previously unforeseen and unhinted-at fault that doesn't reveal itself in minor glitches first. 

I hear you, Jim!  I hope once they lift-off, it's a smooth, safe and successful round trip.

The materials on those craft, if not replaced are old.  I too worry about the age factor.

I'll be keeping every appendage crossed!

 :koala

Although it seems a bit bizar, it looks like NASA is just going to have to be 'lucky' to fly the shuttle enough time to fulfill its duties... :-/

Countdown Resumes for Discovery's Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 23) - NASA restarted its countdown clocks on Saturday in preparation for a second attempt to return its space shuttle fleet to flight following the 2003 Columbia accident.

"We are all eagerly looking forward to a successful launch," said NASA test director Pete Nickolenko.

Liftoff of space shuttle Discovery is targeted for 10:39 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. The seven-member crew arrived at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Friday for final flight preparations.

NASA had planned to launch Discovery on July 13 but a critical fuel sensor failed a routine preflight test and managers called off the flight.

After more than a week of tests, engineers were unable to duplicate the glitch but did find some slight problems with how some parts of the sensor system were electrically grounded. Technicians made adjustments to three groundings.

Attempts to trace possible electromagnetic interference so far have not been successful, but NASA plans to continue tests once the shuttle's fuel tank is filled with 500,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on launch day.

"The battery of testing and analysis that we've done so far leads us to believe we are confident that we've got good sensors," Nickolenko said. "The true proof will be when we perform the tanking operation for the launch attempt Tuesday morning."

This will be the fourth flight for Collins.

NASA to Launch Even if Problem Recurs
Lift-Off Scheduled for Tuesday Morning
By MARCIA DUNN, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 24) - NASA said Sunday it will launch the first space shuttle flight in 2 1/2 years even if Discovery is plagued by the same fuel gauge problem that halted the previous countdown two weeks ago.

Discovery is set to lift off Tuesday at 10:39 a.m.

Deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said the fuel gauge problem has been a vexing one — engineers still don't know exactly what caused it — and he's repeatedly asked himself, "Are we taking care enough to do it right?"

"Based on the last 10 days' worth of effort, the huge number of people and the tremendous number of hours that have been spent in testing and analysis, I think that we're coming to the right place," he said.

At an evening news conference, Hale and other NASA officials found themselves defending the decision to launch with a fuel gauge failure. They stressed that they will proceed with a liftoff only if the problem is well understood and involves the gauges in question — anything else will result in a postponement.

NASA's own launch rule — in place since the 1986 Challenger disaster — requires that all four hydrogen fuel gauges in the external tank be working properly. Going with three out of four would result in a "deviation" of the rule, Hale told reporters.

"I am committed — and I think the whole team is committed — to doing this in a safe manner," Hale said. "I think we're all still struggling a little bit with the ghost of Columbia and therefore we want to make sure we do it right."

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he supports the decision and even hopes the problem recurs to further pinpoint the source of the trouble. He acknowledged that the public might perceive that the space agency is rushing to launch, but insisted it was the right technical judgment.

"These are rather arcane matters, I would admit. They're rather difficult and sometimes they don't always present well," Griffin said. "But in the long run, I think if it's the right thing, we can explain it to you, and you want us doing what's right, not what necessarily is obvious or popular."

Workers last week repaired faulty electrical grounding inside Discovery in hopes that would solve the fuel gauge problem that thwarted the first launch attempt on July 13. One of the four gauges failed a routine test two hours before the scheduled liftoff. Technicians also swapped the wiring between the troublesome fuel sensor and another one to better understand the issue if it reappears Tuesday.

The same type of problem occurred back in April during a fueling test, and was written off as an "unexplained anomaly."

The fuel gauges are needed to prevent the main engines from shutting down too soon or too late during liftoff, in the event of an extreme problem like a leaking tank. The first scenario could result in a risky, never-attempted emergency landing; the second could cause the engine turbines to rupture and, quite possibly, destroy the spacecraft.

Only two fuel gauges are needed to avoid such dangerous situations, but NASA normally requires all four to be working at liftoff for redundancy.

Hale conceded there is no way to know with 100 percent certainty that more fuel gauges will not conk out on the shuttle's climb to orbit, if NASA launches with only three functioning ones. But that would involve stacking up multiple failures, he noted, "and the odds become kind of in the acceptable risk category that we have to go fly with."

One person at Sunday's mission management meeting, which was led by Hale, had concerns about the fuel gauge issue and expressed them in an anonymous suggestion box. Hale said the matter was addressed and, in the end, the group came to a consensus — "I would almost say unanimity" — that the game plan was good.

NASA has just one week to launch Discovery and its crew of seven to the international space station, before putting off the mission until September.

The space agency is insisting on good lighting in order to see any signs of the type of launch damage that crippled Columbia. The opportunity for good photography, both at Cape Canaveral and over the North Atlantic when the fuel tank separates nearly nine minutes after liftoff, diminishes in August and is unacceptable until Sept. 9.

Forecasters, meanwhile, put the odds of good launch weather Tuesday at 60 percent, with rain and clouds as the main concerns. What's more, the weather at the overseas emergency landing sites is not looking good at all.

Hale refused to put his own odds on the chance of a liftoff.

"My observation is that when the weather is good, you have vehicle problems. If the vehicle works, you have weather problems," he said, smiling. "Since we have some weather concerns, I'm confident the vehicle is going to be OK."

Discovery's Fuel Sensor Passes Pre-Launch Test
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 26) - A fuel sensor system on Discovery's external tank passed initial tests early Tuesday as NASA finished fueling the space shuttle for the first launch attempt since the doomed Columbia flight 2 1/2 years ago.

NASA officials monitored the fuel sensor system on the gigantic external tank throughout the entire three-hour fueling process to make sure the sensors functioned properly. A faulty reading of a sensor caused a scrub on July 13 as astronauts were boarding the spacecraft.

"All the sensors are performing as expected,'' said NASA commentator Jessica Rye.

Discovery and a crew of seven were set to blast off for the international space station at 10:39 a.m. EDT. The forecast improved early Tuesday to odds of good launch weather at 80 percent, compared to 60 percent the day before.

NASA had the paperwork ready to go in case the equipment trouble reappeared and the space agency's managers decided to press ahead with the launch with just three of the four sensors working, a deviation from a rule instituted after the 1986 Challenger explosion.

Only two sensors are needed to do the job. But ever since NASA's return to space in 1988, the space agency has decreed that all four have to work to proceed with launch.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin called the deviation "an acceptable risk.''

"Actually, it's quite a low one,'' Griffin told The Associated Press on Monday.

The fuel sensors are designed to prevent the main engines from running too long or not long enough, in case the fuel tank is leaking or some other major breakdown occurs. An engine shutdown at the wrong time could prove catastrophic, forcing the astronauts to attempt a risky emergency landing overseas, or leading to a ruptured engine.

Over the past few days, NASA rewired two of the sensors to try to diagnose the trouble and repaired faulty electrical grounding aboard Discovery in hopes that would solve it.

"We have addressed everything we know on the shuttle that can go wrong that we have the technology to fix,'' Griffin said. "Some things simply are inherent to the design of the bird and cannot be made better without going and getting a new generation of spacecraft.''

But a retired agent in NASA's inspector general office, Joseph Gutheinz, said the space agency does not appear to have learned its lesson with Columbia. Accident investigators criticized NASA's tendency to downplay risks and discourage engineers from speaking up.

"It is clear to me that NASA continues to put mission over safety,'' Gutheinz said. "I fear that if NASA is wrong this time, as they were for Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, manned space missions may be halted for a very long time in the United States.''

The launch promised not only to be an appraisal of changes in NASA's safety culture, but also a test of a redesigned fuel tank that was altered after the Columbia disaster to minimize debris falling off it.

Discovery has only until the beginning of August to fly to the space station on a 12-day supply and repair mission; the next launch opportunity will not come until Sept. 9.

The launch window is dictated by the space station's position and NASA's insistence on a daylight liftoff to provide good views for the more than 100 cameras that will be checking for any Columbia-type launch damage.

While in orbit, Discovery's crew will inspect the most vulnerable areas of the spacecraft, using a new 50-foot, laser-tipped boom. They also will practice repairing samples of deliberately damaged thermal tile and panels.

OK, we're out of the T-9:00 hold and rolling towards launch with no apparent problems.



LET'S DO LAUNCH!!!!


Jim

HOORAH!!!!   ;D

Like 3-2-1, orbiter Discovery has successfully shed its Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tank, and shut down the main engines after reaching space.

Solid Rocket Booster separation was triggered 2-minutes and 5-seconds into the flight after burnout of the putty-like fuel packed inside each rocket. The firing of explosive bolts freed the twin boosters from the side of the External Tank, allowing them to peel away from the Space Shuttle. Parachutes were then automatically deployed from the boosters, allowing them to slowly descend into the Atlantic Ocean where they will be towed back to shore.

Discovery initiated the command for Main Engine Cutoff, or MECO, at the 8-minute, 23-second mark. MECO shuts down the orbiter's three powerful engines in the rear of Discovery after completing the "uphill" climb into space.

With the ascent into space complete and fuel onboard the External Tank exhausted, Discovery jettisoned the orange canister. Following jettison, Discovery used it's new belly-mounted digital camera to take pictures of the tank as it fell back into Earth's atmosphere.

Some highlights from NASA's Virtual Control Center
----------------------------------------------------------------

10:48 a.m. - Main engine cut-off -- and jettison of the External Tank! Discovery has reached orbit! Commander Eileen Collins confirms a good separation.

10:46 a.m. - Discovery traveling 3,300 miles per hour, altitude 65 miles, and 615 miles downrange from Kennedy.

10:45 a.m. - Discovery has rolled back to a heads-up position now as it soars toward orbit.

10:44 a.m. - Space Shuttle Discovery is traveling 6,700 miles per hour and is 200 miles from Kennedy.

10:42 a.m. - Space Shuttle Discovery is now 85 miles east of the Kennedy Space Center.

10:41 a.m. - Mission-elapsed time two minutes, five seconds and Discovery's twin Solid Rocket Boosters have separated successfully.

10:39 a.m. - 3... 2... 1... and liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery... beginning America's new journey to the moon, Mars and beyond... and the vehicle has cleared the tower.
(OK, let's not overdo it here!  ::)  )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

41 minutes out and so far so good.  :2thumbsup.gif:   :biggulp

 :koala

As far as can be told from first looks, an absolutely beautiful ascent and orbital insertion.  The ET camera views were quite spectacular, without the loss of image caused by the SRB sep rocket plumes on the Atlantis flight in late 2002.  Clear images of the roll to heads-up attitude, MECO (with shutdown clearly visible) and ET sep, including visible RCS plumes as the orbiter manuevered away from the ET.

They had a good OMS 2 burn and are configuring for orbital ops.  Payload bay doors to open in about 40 minutes.

Jim

Earlier this morning -

NICE shot, Astronuc - caught the "beanie" in retraction!

things still going swimmingly as we move towards payload bay door opening.  Seems to be some possiblity of getting downlinked TV of the door deploy via Houston...

Jim

Jim, I lifted the pic from this morning off the shuttle site.  ;D  It gives me goosebumps.  :elkgrin.gif:

Station Crew Ready for Shuttle’s Arrival

Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips are awaiting the arrival of the first Space Shuttle to visit the International Space Station since Endeavour left in December 2002.

Space Shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew launched from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 10:39 a.m. EDT to begin its two-day chase of the Station. Discovery is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 7:27 a.m. EDT Thursday.

Discovery will deliver supplies and equipment, much of which is in the Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module named Raffaello. The STS-114 crew will conduct three spacewalks, which will include the replacement of one of the Station’s motion control gyroscopes and the outfitting of the Station’s exterior.

NASA's ISS page.

ISS tracking - http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html

Tracking ISS and shuttle - http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/

ISS is doing about 17215 mph (27704 km/h), so Discovery will have to match that (+/-).

NASA Studies Debris Recorded During Launch
By JEFF DONN, AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 26) - In uneasy reminders of the Columbia accident, a thermal tile apparently got chipped and other debris whirled around Discovery as it rumbled toward space Tuesday, but it wasn't clear if the shuttle's sensitive skin had been jeopardized.

A 1 1/2-inch-wide bit of tile captured on camera appeared to fly off the shuttle's belly, on the edge of a door that encloses the nose landing gear. It was not clear if the tile had been struck by anything. Pieces of tile, which protect the shuttle from searing heat on return to Earth, have been lost on past flights without preventing a safe homecoming.

''We're going frame-by-frame through the imagery,'' said John Shannon, a NASA operations manager.

Also, NASA video revealed what appeared to be a sizable piece of material - maybe a chunk of insulation - coming off the shuttle's external fuel tank two minutes into flight. It did not strike the orbiter that carries the seven astronauts, the NASA manager said. Other agency footage showed covers flying off Discovery's thrusters - something expected to happen.

NASA managers said they would take several days to make a full judgment of any damage to the shuttle and decide how to deal with it.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is seeing more of the impact of launch on the shuttle than ever before, thanks to its most elaborate array of cameras and other imaging in history. ''I fully expected we would see things that we hadn't seen in the past,'' said Shannon.

NASA trained more than 110 cameras on Discovery as it rumbled toward orbit. That's roughly 30 more than during the last shuttle launch - Columbia's 2003 mission that killed all seven astronauts and grounded the fleet until now.

The new cameras are meant to provide better views of damage to the shuttle's exterior from falling insulation, ice created by supercold fuel, or other materials. ''Along with cameras on the ground, and in and on the shuttle itself, this imaging system will provide an unprecedented look at shuttle liftoff and atmospheric flight,'' said Bob Page, who is supervising NASA's camera team.

NASA wants to avoid a repeat of the Columbia mission, when a slab of insulating foam gashed its wing as it hurtled toward orbit. Mission ground crew suspected the strike, but blurry images made it hard to judge damage, investigators said.

For this launch, cameras were posted at new sites to track Discovery's launch from three angles. NASA set up new high-definition digital video cameras that can load images into the computer at the Kennedy Space Center launch site within 15 minutes of liftoff.

A camera on Discovery's giant external fuel tank also gave an unprecedented look at the shuttle's whole ascent. The astronauts then took digital pictures as the jettisoned tank tumbled back toward Earth.

In an experiment, two weather planes with crew in pressurized suits - for flight above 50,000 feet - shadowed the shuttle 20 miles away and captured high-altitude digital images through a telescope.

''It's a real expensive video game trying to keep the shuttle ... in the field of view,'' said crewman Brian Barnett.

Almost 90 impact sensors on the shuttle's wings, as well as radar, were arrayed to back up the pictures taken during liftoff.

Spy satellites were to photograph the shuttle later in the mission. The crew of the international space station will take pictures of the shuttle tiles when the craft approaches later in the week.

About 100 analysts at Kennedy, Johnson and Marshall space centers have been assigned to study the shuttle pictures and help decide if it was seriously damaged by any debris.

While the high-definition video can be viewed quickly, analysts must wait about a day for the first delivery of film, which gives the sharpest pictures.

NASA did not expect to eliminate all debris from shuttle liftoffs, despite its safety improvements. If dangerous damage has occurred, the astronauts can take temporary refuge inside the space station, and another shuttle crew could be sent up on a rescue mission.

poor bird ...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050726images/
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050726debris/

Was it a boird...was it a tile...   What was it?   Will they be able to correct this for re-entry?   :huh2

poor bird ...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050726images/
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050726debris/

It almost seems the Shuttle needs an ablative layer of Al or something on the outside of the tiles to protect them from impact.

I also thought it would be worthwhile to put a Kevlar mesh on the upper part of the tank so that the foam does not break off.  Certainly adding more weight would be an issue, but perhaps fine strands of Kevlar would displace some foam and weigh less than the heaters they installed.

And why not blow dry air on the tank?

Operating a cryogenic system on the Atlantic coast in Florida - with that humidity - is asking for problems.  ::)

I know - move the state of Florida further west - just below West Texas.  ;D

Or easier - trade Florida with Mexico for an equal amount of land.   ;D

I wonder if that black object breaking away from the tank after SRB separation was that bird? Could it have become stuck to the ET and get carried almost all the way into orbit?

I remember seeing some kind of hawk or falcon flying around the launch pad just before launch. I think it even landed on the tower, I remember thinking it would be toast if it didn't get out of there.

NASA Halts Future Shuttle Flights
Space Agency Determines Foam Insulation Flew Off Discovery
By MARCIA DUNN, AP

SPACE CENTER, Houston (July 28) - In a numbing setback sure to set off a national debate over the future of the space program, NASA has grounded all future shuttle flights because of a large chunk of foam that broke off Discovery's fuel tank in hauntingly similar fashion to Columbia's doomed mission.

This time, engineers believe, the foam tumbled harmlessly away during liftoff and Discovery was spared.

"Until we're ready, we won't go fly again,'' shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said Wednesday evening at a grim news conference. "I don't know when that might be, so I'll just state that right up front. We're just in the beginning of this process of understanding.''

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin promised the space agency would make any needed modifications before shuttles lift off again. He stressed that this is a test flight and "among the things we are testing are the integrity of the foam insulation and the performance of new camera equipment installed to detect problems.''

"The cameras worked well. The foam did not,'' he said in a statement.

NASA does not believe the flying debris that peeled off the external fuel tank struck Discovery. Every indication so far, officials said, is that the shuttle is safe to return its seven astronauts to Earth.

"Call it luck or whatever, it didn't harm the orbiter,'' Parsons said. If the foam had broken away earlier in flight - when the atmosphere is thicker, increasing the acceleration and likelihood of impact - it could have caused catastrophic damage to Discovery.

"We think that would have been really bad, so it's not acceptable,'' said Parsons' deputy, Wayne Hale.

Discovery's astronauts were informed of the foam loss Wednesday, but made no mention of it over the NASA radio lines after they awakened late at night and began preparing for Thursday's linkup with the international space station. The station's two residents had cameras ready to check for any damage from the foam or other debris.

The loss of such a large chunk of debris, a vexing problem NASA thought had been fixed, shattered the euphoria from Tuesday's shuttle launch, the first in 2 1/2 years. The redesign of the fuel tank was the focal point of the space agency's $1 billion-plus effort to make the 20-year-old space shuttles safer to fly following the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

The grounding also adds to the burden on the space station, which has been relying solely on Russia's much smaller spacecraft for crew and cargo deliveries.

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., said NASA is handling the situation "exactly right.''

"It doesn't appear that the mission is in jeopardy. Nothing is in jeopardy except the schedule. But I don't want to underestimate the seriousness of it in terms of the future,'' Boehlert said.

The three remaining shuttles are due to retire in 2010, and a new spacecraft is in the works. President Bush has a lofty plan for NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 and eventually to Mars. It's unclear how the latest grounding might affect public sentiment for the space program.

The piece of foam flew off Discovery's redesigned tank just two minutes after what initially looked like a perfect liftoff, right after the booster rockets peeled away. But in less than an hour NASA had spotted images of a mysterious object whirling away from the tank.

Mission managers did not realize what the object was - or how much havoc it would cause - until Wednesday after reviewing video and images taken by just a few of the 100-plus cameras in place to watch for such dangers.

Parsons offered no excuses, saying, "You have to admit when you're wrong. We were wrong.''

Engineers believe the irregularly sized piece of foam that came off was 24 to 33 inches long, 10 to 14 inches wide, and between 2 and 8 inches thick - only somewhat smaller than the 1.67-pound chunk that smashed into Columbia's left wing during liftoff. The plate-sized hole let in superheated gases that caused the shuttle to break up on its return to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003.

On Discovery, the foam broke away from a different part of the tank than the piece that mortally wounded Columbia.

Atlantis - whose own fuel tank is now suspect - was supposed to lift off in September, but that mission is now on indefinite hold. Parsons refused to speculate when a shuttle might fly again, but did not rule out the possibility that Discovery's current mission may be the only one for 2005.

Parsons said it was unlikely Atlantis would be needed for a rescue mission, in the event Discovery could not return safely to Earth and its astronauts had to move into the space station. Discovery, fortunately, appears to be in good shape for re-entry, he said.

Wednesday's inspection of Discovery's wings and nose using a new 100-foot, laser-tipped crane turned up nothing alarming, but analysis was ongoing, Hale said.

In addition to the big chunk of foam, several smaller pieces broke off, including at least one from an area of the fuel tank that had been modified after Columbia. Thermal tile was also damaged on Discovery's belly soon after liftoff; one tile lost a 1 1/2-inch piece right next to the set of doors for the nose landing gear, a particularly vulnerable spot.

Hale said none of the tile damage looked serious and likely would not require repairs in orbit.

Imagery experts and engineers expect to know by Thursday afternoon whether the gouge left by the missing piece of tile - or anything else - needs another look. The astronauts' inspection boom could determine precisely how deep the damage is, and they will probably pull it back out Friday.

NASA Suspending Shuttle Program Over Foam Debris

By JOHN SCHWARTZ (NY Times)

HOUSTON, July 27 - NASA suspended further flights of the space shuttle fleet on Wednesday after determining that a large piece of insulating foam had broken off the external fuel tank of the Discovery shortly after liftoff Tuesday morning, the same problem that doomed the Columbia and its seven astronauts in the last mission, two and a half years ago.

The foam does not appear to have struck the Discovery, so the decision will not curtail its 12½-day mission to the International Space Station, the officials said. But further flights will be postponed indefinitely, starting with that of the Atlantis, which was to have lifted off as early as September.

"Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again," William W. Parsons, the manager of the shuttle program, said at a news briefing at the Johnson Space Center here on Wednesday evening.

The detection of another large breakaway piece of insulating foam is a potentially devastating setback for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a bitter counterpoint to the elation of Monday's seemingly perfect launching of the Discovery, a return to flight that was hailed as an inspiring comeback for the space program.

The effort to fix the foam problem had consumed more than two years and hundreds of millions of dollars. NASA identified the area on the tank that shed the latest piece of foam as a risk, but put off redesigning it.

"We decided it was safe to fly as is," Mr. Parsons said. "Obviously, we were wrong."

The incident occurred two minutes into the launching, at a point where the atmosphere is so thin that the piece drifted away. The Columbia accident occurred in part because the foam fell off the tank about 82 seconds after liftoff, when the air was much thicker and slowed the foam so the climbing orbiter struck it with great force.

N. Wayne Hale, the deputy manager of the shuttle program, said that if the Discovery foam had been shed earlier, "we think that it would have been really bad."

Tense and somber, Mr. Parsons said that he was "disappointed" in the news. Mr. Hale sounded resigned. "We are in the business of flying in space - it's a very difficult business," he said, adding: "It isn't disheartening. It's just the nature of the business."

Others were more dismayed. A NASA engineer who has been involved in the return-to-flight effort said: "It's an ugly story. It's a mess." The engineer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issues involved, added, "Everyone's really, really disappointed," but continued: "It is what it is. Physics doesn't lie."

Alex Roland, a former NASA historian who now teaches at Duke and is a frequent critic of the space program, said that in some ways the problem was "worse than an unexpected anomaly arising."

"This was the major problem that they were looking to solve," Mr. Roland said. "It must be enormously demoralizing to them."

Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican who is chairman of the House Science Committee, said the shuttle program was "rightly grounded."

"Nothing can go forward at this juncture until there is further analysis and a remedy to the problem," Mr. Boehlert said. "It all depends on what they find. In some respects, it's back to the drawing board."

The Columbia and its crew were lost because a 1.67-pound piece of insulating foam that had fallen off the external tank during liftoff crashed through the leading edge of the shuttle's left wing. The resulting hole admitted superheated gases during the shuttle's fiery re-entry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003.

That chunk fell from an area of hand-applied foam called the bipod arm ramp. The ramp's insulating foam surrounded the struts connecting the tank to the orbiter, and were originally designed to prevent ice from forming and becoming a debris hazard. But NASA had noticed that the bipod arm ramp tended to shed foam and decided to redesign it. They planned to replace it after the Columbia flight.

After the Columbia accident, the investigators who implicated the falling foam as the physical cause demanded that NASA find ways to sharply limit the amount of foam that falls off the external tank. Just as important, the investigative board determined, a "broken safety culture" tended to play down risks.

In response, NASA extensively tested foam and the way it is applied, modified the tank so that it would be less likely to shed debris, and replaced the foam-covered ramps with a heater.

In the incident described here on Wednesday, the new piece of foam - a hat-shaped chunk as much as 33 inches across at the widest part and 14 inches at the narrow part - sheared off another ramp on the external tank. It is known as the protuberance air load ramp, which NASA abbreviates as the PAL ramp, and was designed to minimize crosswise airflow and turbulence around cable trays and lines used to pressurize the external tank. The new piece is slightly smaller than the briefcase-size piece that hit the Columbia, Mr. Hale said.

Because of the other redesign efforts on the external tank, NASA engineers estimated that no piece of foam would come off the external tank that was larger than three-hundredths of a pound, and said they hoped to see no foam debris larger than one-hundredth of a pound.

On Wednesday, Mr. Parsons, who led the program requirements control board that considered all modifications, said, "We had enough data that showed we had had very few problems with the PAL ramp." The ramp, they found, performed a valuable protective function, he said; with no other obvious options, they decided the shuttle was safe to fly.

While the two other shuttles, Atlantis and Endeavour, are grounded, work will begin on solving the PAL ramp problem. "We'll put our best people on it," Mr. Parsons said, "and we'll figure out something to do."

"I don't know if that's a month, I don't know if that's three months," he went on. "We've got a lot of work in front of us."

But before that, the officials said, there is still a mission to complete and seven astronauts in space. Using the official numerical designation for the flight, Mr. Hale said,