Day of the Endeavour
“It looks like we have a very good vehicle on the pad,” said NASA’s launch integration manager LeRoy Cain. “The crew is ready. The team is ready.”
For most of us, high heat temperatures and heat warnings are not good news. But for those involved with the launching of NASA’s 20th STS-118 mission of the Endeavour, it is wonderful during a time when nasty weather consisting of lightening and thunderstorms have prevented not only launchings of spacecraft but also landings. An 80% favorable liftoff condition is promised, but that is approximately 12 hours from this writing. LOTS can happen with Mother Nature, not the weather forecasters, in charge during this time.
Presently, the launching of the space shuttle Endeavour and its crew is still being planned today at 6:36 p.m. EDT. According to NASA, a stem-to-stern payload of 5,000 pounds of cargo, loaded spare parts platform, and a brand new starboard-side girder will be destined for the International Space Station. After being earth-bound for five years, NASA’s Endeavour shuttle is carrying this heavy load for a major overhaul to upgrade and refit the 100-ton space station. The mission set out for construction work is slated for 11 days, but an additional three days may be added if a new station-to-shuttle power transfer system aboard the shuttle Endeavour works well.
More technically, part of the Endeavour’s mission is four spacewalks– in order to attach the Starboard 5 (S5) truss, along with other hardware to the ISS’s exterior. The S5 is a smaller spacer truss, serving as a bridge between the space station’s solar arrays, newly installed, and their new pair of solar wings that will be set to launch in another year. NASA reports that an external spare parts platform and a replacement for a broken gyroscope in the outpost’s U.S. attitude control system.
During the five years since the Endeavour’s last 2002 launching, this is the Endeavour’s first launching after several years of modifications. According to Wayne Hale, the shuttle’s program manager of NASA, the Endeavour is now like a brand new space shuttle that has been highly inspected from one end to another. “It’s like driving a new car off the showroom floor.” NASA inspectors have inspected over 150 miles of wiring, while enhancing the shuttle’s avionics interface and adding two new systems of a power-transfer and also for engine-monitoring.
The Endeavour is also known as the Orbiter Vehicle-105 (OV-105), the youngest space shuttle of NASA, commissioned in 1987 as a replacement of its sister ship, with the loss of the Challenger and its crew in 1986. In 1991, prior to its activation by NASA for their orbiter fleet, the shuttle had been in the Rockwell International hanger which is now known as Boeing.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 3:12 am and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
