Space Shuttle Status Report

[Astronuc]

Uggh!!! Another delay.  A faulty fuel cell.

[Astronuc]

Atlantis Set for Saturday Launch

Sept. 8, 2:00 p.m. EDT
At a Mission Management briefing, Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale discussed the ECO sensor problem that scrubbed today's launch saying that the engineers needed more time to study the data.

"We're going to review the data overnight," Hale explained. "If everything is performing as we expect and we just have one sensor continuing to be a bad actor, we'll launch tomorrow."

U.S. Air Force First Lt. Kaleb Nordgren of the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station reported only a 20 percent chance of weather presenting a problem at the new launch time of 11:15 a.m. on Saturday.

The technical issue that caused the scrub arose earlier in the countdown when launch controllers detected a problem with one of the four engine cut-off (ECO) sensor systems inside the liquid hydrogen section of the space shuttle's orange external tank. The sensor system is one of several that protect the shuttle's main engines by triggering their shut down if fuel runs unexpectedly low.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/157006main_122488main_ECO_sensors.jpg

[Astronuc]

Sept. 9, 9:10 a.m. EDT

The hatch into Atlantis' crew cabin has been sealed for flight following the strapping in of all six STS-115 astronauts inside the ship. Commander Brent Jett and his crew are now setting switches and bringing the orbiter's systems online as the countdown to an 11:15 a.m. launch ticks on.

Today's weather around Kennedy Space Center is nicely suited for a space shuttle launch. The current temperature is approaching 80 degrees, with light winds and only a few scattered clouds dotting the sky.

[Astronuc]

Atlantis now rolling into heads up preparing for release from tank.  About 6 min into flight.  Less than 2.5 minutes of burn left. Safe orbit achievable on two engines. 

[Skyjim]

Gorgeous, clean ascent, and a very smooth flight so far.  I'm living on Pacific daylight time, which means that most of the key events are happening in the hours immediately after bars close where I live!

Not being much of a barfly these days,  but having the luxury of a fair amount of free time for the next month or so, I'm enjoying watching the NASA TV coverage of this mission and staggering through the rest of life for this week.  As long as I get some projects around the house done in the evenings, I'm not feeling too guilty.   Lots of brush clearing and related yard work I do during this dead time before schools start to book planetarium shows in large numbers...

The removal and handoff of the P3/P4 truss was very impressive this morning - very little room  to spare on the way out of the payload bay.  As always, those remarkable Canadian arms performed beautifully!

Cannot wait to see the intense EVA work and solar array deploy over the next few days - FINALLY  getting back to ISS expansion makes me feel that things are moving forward again. 

How is everyone feeling about shuttle ops in general?  I was personally a little spooked by the fact that they seemed to be trying to talk themselves into writing new launch criteria on launch day when they ran into the ECO sensor glitch.  Yes, they would've gotten away with it, but Go Fever can and has killed people in the past.  Glad they stuck with the prewritten LCC, but it sounds like they were one vote away from violating it!

Jim

[Astronuc]

I was watching prelims of the launch, then walked away to do something and got distracted, and came back about 4 minutes after ingnition.    But I did catch it as the passed into two engines to orbit and watched it through MECO (MCO) and detachment of ET from Atlantic.  It was nice! 

 

[Skyjim]

Every time I see the SSMEs light up, I think back to days when I'd effectively live with an SSME nozzle for a couple of days in "my" test cell at Rocketdyne.  Watching the deflections during the start transients, I remember laying my hands on the nozzle exit, and imagining the violence that would occur at that spot...

Jim

[remcook]

yes, this is very positive. Let's get that ISS built quickly and without any problems, please! Then we can think about new and even more exciting things.

[Skyjim]

That first EVA was absolutely spectacular!  Well worth giving up normal sleep patterns for...

Hope the bolt/spring/nut Tanner lost doesn't get into the mechanism of the SARJ and jam something up!  (No idea if that is even a possibility - but Tanner kept saying "Not good" as he was trying to find the parts. ).

Jim

[LunarOrbit]

Woohoo... Canadians now have over 21 hours of EVA time under their belts.

Steve MacLean and Dan Burbank just wrapped up EVA 2 about half an hour ago. MacLean lost another bolt... hopefully that won't cause any problems. Canadians hate to litter.

[Astronuc]

Canadians hate to litter.

  Especially when it is traveling 17,222 mph (27716 km/h).

[Astronuc]

Shuttle is cleared to land on Thursday.    I hope all goes well and that Atlantis returns safely to Kennedy Space Flight Center.

Space shuttle cleared for Thursday landing in Fla

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA cleared space shuttle Atlantis to return to Earth on Thursday, confident that unidentified objects spotted floating near the spaceship did not result from damage to its heat shield or other critical equipment.

Atlantis' homecoming from an 11-day construction mission at the International Space Station had been planned for Wednesday, but was delayed a day so the crew could make an unprecedented third inspection of their ship.

NASA was concerned the objects might be debris from something that had struck and damaged the shuttle. Since the 2003 Columbia disaster, the result of an impact by debris shed during launch, NASA has been particularly careful to ensure the shuttles are in good shape before allowing them to return to Earth.

With its protective heat shield damaged by the debris, Columbia broke apart as it attempted to fly through the atmosphere for landing, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Atlantis' touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was rescheduled for 6:21 a.m. (1021 GMT) on Thursday.

The extra inspection was prompted by video showing a mysterious dark object flying near the shuttle on Tuesday. A second item was later spotted by one of Atlantis' astronauts and photographed, then three more flew by the shuttle's windows on Wednesday.

Atlantis astronauts used a camera on the spacecraft's 50-foot (15-meter) robot arm to scan the heat shield for damage and then added a longer, sensor-laden extension boom for close-up study.

[Astronuc]

Shuttle Atlantis has safely returned to Kennedy Space Flight Center!  Thus concludes STS-115. 

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/multimedia/sts115/landing/landing.html

Atlantis glided to a pre-dawn landing at 6:21 a.m. EDT, concluding a successful mission to resume construction of the International Space Station. Launched Sept. 9, the orbiter arrived at the station on the 11th to delivered and install the P3/P4 integrated truss segment duirng three successful spacewalks.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/truss_segment.html

[Astronuc]

NASA OKs night launch for shuttle

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- For the first time in four years, the next space shuttle launch attempt most likely will be at night, NASA said Thursday.

The first launch possibility for Discovery will be December 7 at 9:38 p.m. EDT, the first try at night since Endeavour lifted off November 23, 2002 at 7:49 p.m. Discovery's launch window extends to December 26.

After the Columbia disaster in 2003, the U.S. space agency began requiring that launches be made in daylight so the space shuttle could be photographed to spot possible damage during liftoff. Insulating foam from Columbia's external fuel tank struck the spacecraft's wing during launch, causing a breach that allowed fiery gases to penetrate the vehicle when it returned through Earth's atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed.

NASA has launched three shuttle flights since the Columbia disaster, all in daylight and with new inspection equipment and techniques for checking for damage. The most recent two launches lost small amounts of foam that didn't threaten the shuttle.

After last week's successful finish of Atlantis' 12-day mission, NASA officials indicated they were willing to relax the daylight rule since there are now new methods for inspecting the shuttle for holes or cracks while in orbit. They said a night launch is needed to stay on schedule to finish construction of the international space station in 14 more flights by 2010.

Next mission is STS-116

[Skyjim]

BIG step forward for the program, and absolutely essential to getting the remaining flights in by the self-imposed 2010 deadline. 

What I haven't been happy about is the move away from the idea of having a second orbiter well advanced in processing if they fly a Hubble mission.  There was a program official at one of the post-landing press conferences (I think it might've been Leroy Cain, but I'm not certain) who talked about launch on need for a Hubble flight being "very difficult" or words to that effect, intimating to me that an effort to rationalize an HST mission without rescue capability might be underway.   

That sets off alarms for me - I'm OK with the risk/benefit rationale for flying to ISS right now, since severe TPS damage is not an automatic loss of crew.  I think Griffin made a very gutsy call on Discovery's launch last summer despite the IFR concerns - they really DID need flight data on the ET in the new configuration - there are no substitutes for operational testing.

 However, the combination of no certified on-orbit TPS repair process (and Wayne Hale has stated that he anticipates none) and no launch-on-need capability seems to me to be an unacceptable risk, no matter how badly I want to fly a Hubble mission.

Please understand that I believe that they would probably get away with it - but it is bad flight safety policy IMHO to fly with your fingers crossed and accept loss of crew in the name of cost and schedule if they have a bad day on ascent. 

Anybody else bothered by this prospect?