NASA’s Launch Pad 39A Now Ready for October’s Launching
At a price of $3 million dollars, the repair of the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center is complete as of today, Wednesday on August 6th, , a repair which began last June. Working two 10-hour shifts a day, technicians had been working on the debris and damage of the flame trench that occurred during the Discovery space shuttle last December, finally seeing the end of their hard work this week. NASA’s Johnson Space Center also reopened today due to Tropical Storm Edouard passing over the area, except for Mission Control to provide guidance for the International Space Station.
Over 3,500 bricks were torn away in order for the repairs to be accomplished as there was an unseen fracture in the wall, requiring 10,000 bricks to be replaced. When the Discovery was launched on May 31, a large section of the flame trench at Launch Pad’s 39A was blown off at supersonic speeds due to the intense pressure of the shuttle, with thankfully no fatalities occurring.
The incident had occurred due to the launch pad’s age, time and environment, with the involved area and material becoming eroded, an area which held a layer of heat-resistant bricks against the trench’s east wall. “Due to interlocking nature of the bricks, that led to cascading failure,” said Perry Becker, head of the Engineering Investigation Team. On the west wall was found a similar area of erosion, with a 25-foot high by 80-foot wide section of the brick’s to be sprayed with a heat resistant material.
A deadline for the work to be finalized was met for the launching of the Atlantis space shuttle on October 8th, which is set for the repair mission of the Hubble Space Telescope. With two launch pads available for the launching of the Atlantis, one is required as an emergency backup rescue mission for the Hubble mission. The Hubble Telescope sits in an entirely different orbit than does the ISS, preventing the shuttle from reaching it in case of something occurring.
NASA still plans on working on the launch pads after the space shuttle program is retired, in order for the Ares I rockets to carry the Orion capsule, a program that intended to replace the shuttles.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. 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.
