Sun, Mar 08, 2009
Flight Readiness Review: Flow Control Valves Are Free Of
Cracks
NASA managers completed a review Friday of space shuttle
Discovery's readiness for flight and selected the official launch
date for the STS-119 mission. Commander Lee Archambault and his six
crewmates are now scheduled to lift off to the International Space
Station at 9:20 pm EDT on Wednesday, March 11.
Discovery's launch date was announced following Friday's Flight
Readiness Review. During the meeting, top NASA and contractor
managers assessed the risks associated with the mission and
determined the shuttle's equipment, support systems, and procedures
are ready for flight.
The review included a formal presentation of the shuttle's flow
control valve work, initiated after NASA identified
damage to hydrogen flow control valves on shuttle
Endeavour during its November 2008 flight. Using a
detailed inspections, there are three valves that have been cleared
of crack indications now installed in Discovery to support the
STS-119 mission.
Discovery's STS-119 flight will deliver the space station's
fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the
station’s truss, or backbone. The arrays will provide the
electricity to fully power science experiments and support the
station's expanded crew of six in May. The 14-day mission will
feature four spacewalks to help install the S6 truss segment to the
starboard, or right, side of the station and the deployment of its
solar arrays. The flight also will replace a failed unit for a
system that converts urine to potable water.
Archambault will be joined on STS-119 by Pilot Tony Antonelli
and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard
Arnold, John Phillips and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will replace space station crew
member Sandra Magnus, who has been aboard the station for more than
four months. He will return to Earth during the next station
shuttle mission, STS-127, targeted to launch in June 2009.
Former science teachers Acaba and Arnold are now fully-trained
NASA astronauts. They will make their first journey to orbit on the
mission and step outside the station to conduct critical
spacewalking tasks.
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