An amateur astronomer blogger highly interested in aerospace, astronomy, astro equipments and other astro related fields. Robin shares the astronomy enthusiasm with people from kids to seniors.
After weathering tropical depression Ernesto at the launch pad, the shuttle Atlantis is set for launch from the Kennedy Space Center at 12:29 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 6
Commander Brent Jett and his five crewmates will travel to the International Space Station to install a new 17-ton segment of the station’s truss backbone, adding a new set of giant solar panels and batteries to the complex. Three spacewalks are planned.
NASA mission managers announced at a midmorning briefing today that rollback preparations are proceeding, ensuring that Space Shuttle Atlantis would be safely back in the Vehicle Assembly Building before effects from Tropical Storm Ernesto would be felt at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s east coast.
The next launch date has not been set.
The Atlantis crew arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday to begin final preparations for mission STS-115. Flying T-38 trainer jets, the astronauts landed at the Shuttle Landing Facility at 11:30 a.m. EDT. The Atlantis crew members have been trainned for 4 years and set a record! They should have done this mission more than 3 years ago but the Columbia disaster put off the mission.
They are going to install the P3/P4 integrated truss and a second set of solar arrays on the space station, doubling the station’s current ability to generate power from sunlight and adding 17.5 tons to its mass.
The Atlantis crew launches at 10.30a.m. EDT, 29 hours from now. To know more about the crew members, please kindly visit NASA.
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 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.
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