Liftoff Scheduled For June 8
NASA officials announced Friday
repairs on the hail-damaged external tank on Space Shuttle
Atlantis have been completed, clearing the shuttle for roll out to
launch pad 39A this Wednesday.
However, launch Director Mike Leinbach said if work to tear down
external tank scaffolding and other preparations go well, the trip
to the pad could move up one day to Tuesday, reported CBS News.
He added, "The team has come through with flying colors and
gotten a completely flight worthy tank put together. ... We are
essentially done with all the repairs on the tank now."
The shuttle Atlantis' hail-damaged external fuel tank has been
repaired, NASA officials said today, clearing the shuttle for
rollout to launch pad 39A next week. Blastoff on a long-delayed
space station assembly mission is targeted for June 8.
"I'm really pleased to say we have effectively completed the
repairs on the external tank," shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale
told reporters Friday. "I think the team that worked on the
external tank across the country, we're really proud of what they
have done. ... It's just an outstanding effort on the parts of
hundreds and hundreds of people."
"The teams have done a phenomenal job of repairing this tank,"
said Bill Gerstenmaier, space operations associate administrator.
"We've done a lot of extra reviews to make sure we didn't miss
anything -- a lot of testing…to make sure things were done
right and they've done a great job."
John Chapman, manager of the external tank project pointed out
the tank will have a speckled appearance... but it will not affect
performance or safety. The foam used for the large-area sprays and
the PDL-type repairs is a much lighter color than the insulation
sprayed on at the factory.
"Your mind will have a hard time convincing your eyes there are
no surface discontinuities where you see changes in color," he
said. "It's very much like a car that has had body and fender work
but hasn't had the primer sprayed on it yet. No matter how much you
look at it and feel it after you've had that work done on a car,
your eye has trouble recognizing the fact that it's going to be
nice and smooth. And that's the situation we have with this tank.
But I promise you, it's absolutely ready to go."
Launch is targeted for 7:37:56 pm EDT on June 8. NASA
plans to hold a two-day flight readiness review May 30 and 31 to
assess the status of launch preparations and to set an official
launch date. Assuming a rollout to the pad on May 16, engineers
will only have three contingency days between then and June 8 to
deal with unexpected problems.