NASA Targets June Launch for Space Shuttle Atlantis
13 April 2007
Schedule shift should not affect planned 2010 shuttle retirement
Washington – NASA has targeted June 8 as the next possible launch opportunity for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission to the International Space Station.
The agency’s decision followed a meeting of officials who reviewed progress in repairing insulating foam on the shuttle's external fuel tank that was damaged during a sudden hailstorm February 26 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"We don't see any big show stoppers in front of us," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations during an April 10 NASA teleconference, "but we understand there's still quite a bit of work to do on the tank, as well as some testing and analysis to be done," before the launch.
Because of the hail damage, engineers will have to repair 2,664 sites on the tank before the shuttle is ready to fly. Many of the repairs are routine – Discovery flew to the International Space Station in 1999, for example, after about 200 hail-damage repairs had been made to the external tank, Gerstenmaier said.
EXTERNAL TANK REPAIRS
The meeting included an assessment of using the repaired external tank, designated ET-124, for the STS-117 mission versus swapping to one that arrived April 6 from the manufacturing plant in New Orleans.
The biggest concern about using ET-124 involved some "unusual and specialized repairs up near the front of the tank," space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said, that required using a new technique the engineering team had to test and evaluate.
"Had the testing or analysis or work come in in an adverse way," Hale said, "it would have been an easy decision to move over to the other tank and go fly that tank. Today, the results are positive, the technical team [and the] independent review teams all expressed a high degree of confidence that we can come to a positive outcome in validating this repair technique, so that's really the key element we were looking for."
The new external tank, now at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will be prepared for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-118 mission to the space station that is now targeted for launch in August.
NASA scheduled four shuttle flights for 2007, and it is not yet clear whether this adjustment will affect that plan.
"Flying four flights is not outside the realm of possibility," Hale said, "but we want to do this in a safe and orderly manner, and we'll just see how it works out."
LAUNCH WINDOW
The launch window for STS-117 extends from June 8 through July 18, then opens again August 5. But NASA managers want to launch the next shuttle flight before August, to maintain the August launch schedule for Endeavour's STS-118 mission.
"Based on the discussions that we've had today," Hale said, "I would say confidence is high that we will fly [STS-117] in the June-July window."
STS-118 will be Endeavour's first mission since its refitting and maintenance; its last mission was in November 2002 and marked the last successful flight before the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003 that killed all seven crew members.
During its August flight, Endeavour will deliver mission specialist Clayton Anderson to the International Space Station to join Expedition 15, and retrieve mission specialist Sunita Williams, who has been aboard the space station since December 2006. The shuttle schedule shift could extend her scheduled six-month tour of duty to eight months.
Also flying on Endeavour will be mission specialist Dafydd Williams from the Canadian Space Agency.
Until the June-July launch, Atlantis Commander Rick Sturckow, pilot Lee Archambault and mission specialists Jim Reilly, Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson and John "Danny" Olivas will continue training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas.
During the 11-day mission, the astronauts will work with the space station crew and ground teams to install a new, girder-like truss segment, unfold a new set of solar arrays and retract one array on the starboard side of the station.
More information about the STS-117 crew and mission is available on the NASA Web site.
For more information about U.S. policy, see Science and Technology.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
