Monthly Archive for July, 2006

Below is the summary of the press release from NASA.

The Space Shuttle Discovery and its crew are home after a 13-day, 5.3 million-mile journey in space. The mission, STS-121, succeeded in testing shuttle safety improvements, repairing a rail car on the International Space Station and producing never-before-seen, high-resolution images of the shuttle during and after its July 4th launch. This mission has elapsed 12 days 18 hours 37 minutes and 54 seconds.

Discovery’s Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and mission specialists Mike Fossum, Piers Sellers, Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson landed Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 9:14 a.m. EDT and all of the wheels stopped at 9:15:49 EDT. As usual, President George W. Bush called the astronauts to congratulate them on a successful mission.

NASA’s Space Shuttle Program managers also were pleased with Discovery’s performance. The flight verified the safety of the biggest aerodynamic change to the external fuel tank in shuttle history. The protuberance air load ramps were removed after a piece of foam came off this area during Discovery’s flight last year.

The astronauts tested the shuttle’s 50-foot robotic arm boom extension as a work platform. They removed and replaced a cable that provides power, command and data and video connections to the station’s mobile transporter rail car. The transporter is used to move a platform containing the station’s robotic arm along the truss of the complex. During the third spacewalk, the astronauts tested techniques for inspecting and repairing the reinforced carbon-carbon segments that protect the shuttle’s nose cone and leading edge of the wings. They’ve successfully accomplished the two major objectives.

Discovery delivered more than 28,000 pounds of equipment and supplies to the station, as well as a third crew member. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter joined Russian Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeff Williams. This marks the first time since May 2003 that the station crew has three members.

By the way, preparations continue for Space Shuttle Atlantis’ launch targeted for late August/early September for the STS-115 mission to deliver additional truss segments to the station. Atlantis is expected to be moved to the launch pad early next month, and NASA managers plan to meet shortly thereafter to clear the shuttle for its first mission since October 2002.

Discovery is planned to be landed on Kennedy Space Center. However, the leaking may affect the plan.

The NASA engineers are seriously monitoring the leak in the pipeline of an auxiliary power unit that controls hydraulic steering and braking maneuvers. It’s now leaking at a rate of 6 drops per hour. It’s either harmless nitrogen or flammable hydrazine fuel. Nevertheless, the current rate is still 100,000 times slower than what would cause a fire.

John Shannon, the shuttle program’s deputy manager, said that the shuttle is certified to land normally with two power units, with the only change requiring pyrotechnics to lower landing gear. It could also land with one power unit on but it is much more difficult.