HOUSTON - Seven astronauts are just one
month away from rocketing towards the International Space
Station (ISS) aboard NASA's
Discovery orbiter
and are eagerly awaiting their orbital construction mission.
"We are
ready to go," said veteran
astronaut Mark Polansky, commander of Discovery's STS-116 mission, in a
press briefing here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Polansky
and his STS-116 crew are set
to launch towards the ISS on Dec. 7 at 9:35:42 p.m. EDT (0235:42 Dec. 8
GMT) to deliver a new piece of the ISS, rewire the orbital laboratory's
electrical grid and activate the station's primary cooling system.
Joining
Polansky on the planned 12-day mission is a diverse crew that includes shuttle
pilot William
Oefelein--Alaska's first astronaut--and mission specialists Robert
Curbeam, Nicholas
Patrick, Joan
Higginbotham, Sunita
Williams and European Space Agency astronaut Christer
Fuglesang, Sweden's first spaceflyer. While all seven have spent years
training for spaceflight, only Polansky and Curbeam--who flew together during NASA's
STS-98 mission to deliver the space station's U.S. Destiny laboratory--have
spent any time in Earth orbit.
"I can't
wait to see the smiles on the faces of five people being on orbit for the first
time," Polansky said, adding that the mission has been a longtime coming for
rookies like Fuglesang, who joined the ESA astronaut ranks in 1992. "There are
people who have waited a very long time."
The STS-116
mission will mark NASA's third shuttle flight of 2006--the second this year
dedicated to ISS
construction--and is the first mission since the 2003 Columbia accident
scheduled to launch at night. NASA's first three post-Columbia accident
missions each launched in daylight to allow a clear view of any debris shed by
shuttle external tanks.
But after
NASA's successful summer daylight launches of Discovery and Atlantis during the
STS-121
and STS-115
missions, respectively, with acceptable fuel tank performances, the space
agency and its astronauts are again ready to press ahead with night space
shots. In-flight orbiter heat
shield inspections are now standard, lending more confidence to NASA's
ability to detect any shuttle damage that may occur from debris shed during a night
launch, mission managers said.
"Day,
night, dusk or dawn, it just doesn't matter to a flight engineer," said
Curbeam, who will aid Polansky and Oefelein during the eight and a half minute launch into
space. "All that matters to me is that the gauges are lit well enough to see
where they are."
Curbeam and
several other STS-116 crewmembers originally expected to launch their mission
in mid-2003, but were delayed following the loss of Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew. Since
then, NASA has made extensive shuttle and fuel tank safety enhancements and
launched three orbiter flights since its STS-114 return to flight in 2005. The
space agency plans at least 14 more orbiter flights to complete the ISS by
September 2010, when it plans to retire its three-orbiter fleet.
"I don't
ever consider it business as usual. What we do is very hard, it's difficult,"
said Higginbotham, who has waited about 10 years for her first spaceflight.
"But it is good to see us back launching shuttles more routinely than we have
for the last two years."
No less
than three spacewalks are planned during STS-116, during which spacewalkers
will help install a new Port 5 truss spacer segment to the portside end of the
ISS, plug the outpost into its primary electrical grid and activate a long
dormant cooling system. The astronauts are also hauling a series of spare parts
and other cargo to the ISS inside Discovery's cargo bay.
Discovery
is also ferrying Williams, who will work alongside Curbeam in the third STS-116
spacewalk, to the ISS, where she will relieve Expedition 14 flight engineer
Thomas Reiter and take his place as a member of the station's crew. She will
join Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer
Tyurin--who arrived at the ISS in September--than stay on as part of the
station's Expedition 15 mission.
"I really
wish they could all stay with me up there," Williams said of her STS-116
crewmates. "But we'll be in touch."
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