Space shuttle crew prepares for launch

[Guest Glenn]

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Space- ... 60919.html

 

NASA's next space shuttle crew, including three men and two women who have never been in orbit before, has jetted to the Kennedy Space Centre, where their spaceship is being prepared for launch.The 9.35pm liftoff on Thursday (0135 AEDT Friday) will be NASA's first in darkness since managers decided after the 2003 Columbia disaster to limit launches to daytime so cameras could clearly see any debris that might peel off the shuttle's fuel tank.

 

A piece of falling debris hit and damaged Columbia's heat shield during liftoff, triggering its destruction as it flew through the atmosphere 16 days later for landing. Seven crew members died.

 

NASA believes the problems with the shuttle fuel tanks are over. Shuttle Discovery's launch on Thursday will be the agency's fourth since the accident.

 

Although work to improve the tanks is ongoing, NASA has returned to construction of the $US100 billion ($A126.85 billion), half-built International Space Station.

 

"We're going to go ahead and hopefully have one heck of night show to give everybody this Thursday night. We're looking forward to the mission," Discovery commander Mark Polansky said shortly after the crew arrived in Florida.

 

Discovery is carrying the next piece of the station - a small aluminum spacer segment needed to expand its external structural truss before additional power-generating solar arrays and new laboratories can be added.

 

NASA lifted the daytime launch ban so it would have enough time to finish the station before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. At least 14 more flights are needed.

 

The truss installation will require one spacewalk, which will be undertaken by NASA astronaut Robert Curbeam, 44, and the European Space Agency's Christer Fuglesang, 49, who will become the first Swede to fly in space.

 

The remainder of the mission, which includes at least two more spacewalks, will be devoted to rewiring the space station's power and cooling systems, a delicate task that requires an unprecedented number of critically timed commands sent by ground control at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston.

 

The station needs power continuously during the transfer from the old system to the new one.

 

"We have a series of fallback plans, depending upon what might go wrong," said Polansky, 50. "We've tried to plan it so that we're very aware of the most likely chain of events that could happen."

 

Rookie astronaut Sunita Williams, 41, will replace Germany's Thomas Reiter as a member of the space station crew. Reiter is to return home with the Discovery crew on December 19.

 

The Discovery crew also includes pilot William Oefelein, 41, and mission specialists Nicholas Patrick and Joan Higginbotham, both 42.

 

Only Polansky and Curbeam have made previous spaceflights.

[Guest Steve R]

The 9.35pm liftoff on Thursday (0135 AEDT Friday) will be NASA's first in darkness since managers decided after the 2003 Columbia disaster to limit launches to daytime so cameras could clearly see any debris that might peel off the shuttle's fuel tank.

Surely that should be 13.35 AEDT?