Tue, Dec 21, 2010
Launch Not Scheduled Until February 3rd
ANN Update 12.21.2010 0935 EST: Teams at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida now are targeting space shuttle
Discovery's roll from Launch Pad 39A back to the Vehicle Assembly
Building for Tuesday night (Dec. 21), with first motion off the pad
at 2200 EST.
Technicians are working to resolve an issue with the leveling
system on the crawler-transporter. They believe a faulty transducer
is the problem, and it can be changed out to support rollback,
which the move is called, Tuesday night.
Original Story: Space shuttle Discovery is
scheduled to roll back from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly
Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for
additional work related to its final scheduled mission. The first
motion of the shuttle is targeted for 0030 EST on Tuesday, Dec.
21.
In the VAB, technicians will scan below the foam insulation
surrounding the intertank section of Discovery's external tank to
look for any issues, such as cracks. They also will reapply foam
after removing 89 sensors from the tank's aluminum skin following
an instrumented tanking test on Dec. 17.
The sensors were used to measure changes in the tank as
super-cold propellants were pumped in and drained out during the
test. Data and analysis from the test will be used to determine
what caused the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called
stringers, on the outside of the intertank to crack during fueling
on Nov. 5.
Discovery's next launch attempt is no earlier than 0137 on Feb.
3.
The fully assembled space shuttle, consisting of orbiter
Discovery, the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters,
is mounted on a mobile launcher platform and will be returned to
the VAB atop a crawler transporter. The crawler will travel slower
than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey, which is expected to take
about six hours.
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