NASA has announced that despite an unexplained fuel cell hiccup, the space shuttle Atlantis is cleared for a launch attempt tomorrow morning. This is coincidentally the 40th Anniversary day of Star Trek. Quite fitting!
Mark
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
And if they can't do it on Friday, they've been allowed Saturday. After that, if they relax the now-required day launch requirements they can do a night launch during the last few days of September. Beyond that it's gonna be a day launch in October (I think I heard around mid October). Any further delays would push back the launch of Discovery for STS-116 into January... possibly February.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I didn't know they now require day launches. I happened to see a 3am launch in 1996 that was absolutely spectacular. There was a clear sky, and you could see a lot of stars. In less than a second, it was suddenly daytime! And I can't even describe the sound and feeling of those engines, even from 2 miles away!
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yep, the daylight thing is now enforced so they can monitor any ET foam falloff. The irony here is that if a problem forces an abort to ground, the landing sites in Europe this time of year are dark by now.
Just over an hour to launch at this time, and the countdown just came out of a hold at T -20 minutes. Godspeed, Atlantis!
Mark
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
And launch has been scrubbed for today. There's a fault in one of the Engine Cut Off sensors in the main tank that's freaking one person out. One's all it takes, so no-go for today and we'll try again tomorrow after emptying the tank and re-testing the sensor.
Mark
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
The only plus side of scrubbing on Saturday would be to further look into the fuel cell problem. Anyway I somehow get the impression this may have all been a result of the lightning strike earlier.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Beautiful launch today - no problems. A true joy to watch after all this time.
The fuel cell glitch was just that - a glitch. After running many more tests in situ, the cell showed no further problems, and is working just fine post-launch. Note that the fuel cell is what's called a "three phase" generator, that produces power with double redundance. Only one of the phases showed a spike on the first scrub day, and not since. If the phase had conked out, the shuttle would still have been able to complete the mission. If the spike meant that the cell would fail on launch, the shuttle would STILL be able to survive for up to week at maximum efficiency on the other two. This would allow them to dock, install the P3/P4 solar array truss at the station, and perform at least one of the critical EVAs to hook it up and get it warm before having to beat it back home. Then, the station crew and/or the next shuttle mission could finish the job. Interestingly enough, the fuel cell is the very same one that failed on a mission on Columbia in the 90s. It'll almost certainly be retired after this mission.
The other main fault detected was the Engine Cut Off (ECO) sensor, which is basically the sensor for the blinky light that tells everyone the external tank's empty. There are four of them at the bottom of the tank, and you only need one; flight rules used to say that you needed three working on takeoff. This was revised to 4/4 after a problem on a Challenger mission, due to faulty electronics elsewhere. The electronics problem was eventually solved, but the 4/4 flight rule remained even though it didn't need to. When they emptied the tank yesterday, the sensor apparently fixed itself, and worked normally upon tanking this morning. If it went wonky again, they would have scrubbed today, delaying the launch until the end of the month at the earliest.
Finally, there was a small glitch with the APU startup just before launch - fixed in situ, no delay, and we saw the launch occur on time and on schedule right after. I always crank the volume on whatever channel I'm watching for a launch... Man, I'd love to see that in person some day!
Still, the fun part is stil to come - they're resuming construction of the station with this mission, and quite dramatically so, with the addition of a 17-ton truss. Two more will be added after this to join the two now in orbit. Also going up are two more interconnecting nodes, three more lab modules (European, Japanese, Russian), and bunch of outfitting missions will round it out. But first, installing the P3/P4 truss will require three EVAs, two of them on consecutive days. Gonna be a busy trip.
Mark <--- loves this shit
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
In NASA related space news, those kickass Mars Rovers are at it again.
How the adverage (idiot) person can not be excited about space exploration is beyond me- worse still are all the sci-fi fans that have no intrest in it!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(pro-space, and yet. . .) Yes, what could be more exciting than the obsolescent spaceship that exists now only to go to the station, going to the station that has no reason to exist other than to provide the ship with somewhere to go?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, there is that, but consider, I've seen blatantly racist people that love Trek! TOS in particular! I mean, how can they sooo miss the point?!
I know Star Wars fans that think going to mars is a waste of money! Maybe they only want space travel if it's served up ready-made and user-friendly?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Or maybe they enjoy watching things that they'd hate to do in real life, or which are simply impossible. By your standard everyone who enjoys Mad Max should want to fight in the Thunderdome.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The Opportunity news is awesome. Note that while the rovers were SUPPOSED to be there for three months, that was merely the service life garuntee - JPL knew that the rovers would last at least that long. We're closing on three YEARS now, which is testament both to the technology and the lasck of foresight on the part of JPL, who really should have planned for a longer mission to begin with. There's a nuclear-powered rover in the works for 2009 which is "guaranteed" for a year, but will likely last five. The addition of the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter this year will greatly expand the rovers' ability to head to scientifically interesting places rather than just wander into them.
Anyway, it's true the shuttle is expensive and archaic - but there's no denying the passion its staff and crew put in to keeping it going. Like the rovers, the shuttle has long exceeded its expected lifetime, and it's NOT the age of the orbiters that has lost us two shuttles in over a hundred missions.
And I know plenty of sci-fi fans who don't like the "hard" space stuff... They're far more interested in the fantastical elements and escapism than the geeky realities behind what they like to read or watch. Oddly enough, many sci-fi fans I know (specifically, the literary SF people) don't like the internet or e-mail either.
Mark
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I...guess so. Tough for me to fathom though.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Of course, if someone is actually interested in fiction that recognizes realities of science, than science fiction of any kind is probably the last thing they'll be interested in. (Except MundaneSF maybe.)
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, that's the trick- the more good sci-fi you read, the more lacking the stuff we see on TV/Movies becomes by comparison.
I recall being dismayed when hollywood learned the word "nanite" (and not that Euerka show is calling them "nanoids"- and should die for it).
There seems to be a fifteen year gap between a great concept in writing a watered-down version churned out as an episode of whatever.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Man I hate streaming video. You'd think NASA has some major computer power that they can use to buff their website but noo, they can't put the videos up as files for us to download and watch at our leisure, they have to stream it. I've waited for 15 minutes now, first in realplayer and then Windows media player, with their cute little logos spinning, saying "buffering". After five more minutes it says "can't play due to networking error".
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