Poor weather hindered one
rocket launch Thursday, but posed little challenge to seven astronauts working
inside NASA's Discovery space
shuttle for a mock countdown and escape drill.
Clad in
bright orange launch suits, NASA shuttle
commander Mark Polansky and his STS-116
mission crewmates headed out to their shuttle Discovery under gray skies
and a slight drizzle here at the Kennedy Space Center during a countdown dress
rehearsal for their planned Dec. 7 launch.
But just
four seconds before "liftoff," a simulated launch abort stopped the clock and
the astronauts clambered
two-by-two out of Discovery's crew cabin and hurried across a 36-story gantry
to escape baskets high above NASA's Pad 39B launch site.
"Everything
went according to plan," NASA
spokesperson Bruce Buckingham told reporters after the successful test. "We've
got several rookies on this mission, so it's a thrill for them to get inside
the vehicle."
No less
than five of the seven STS-116
astronauts are making their first spaceflight during the upcoming mission,
which will ferry a
new crewmember to the International Space
Station, deliver a new piece of
the orbital laboratory's main truss and rewire
its electrical grid.
"It's a
wonderful feeling," NASA astronaut Joan
Higginbotham, an STS-116 mission specialists and first-time spaceflyer,
told reporters at Pad 39B Wednesday. "It gives us joy to know that in just a
few short weeks we'll be doing the countdown for real, and that many of us--five
of us to be exact--will be experiencing our first launch."
Despite the
short-lived rain, the astronauts' umbrellas went unused today though the poor weather
prompted launch officials at the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to scrub
today's planned liftoff of a Delta 2 rocket and its Global Positioning
System (GPS) satellite cargo.
Discovery,
too, would likely have remained on Earth due to weather had today been an
actual launch attempt, Buckingham said.
Final
drill
Today's
shuttle escape drill capped several days of training for NASA's STS-116 crew in
a traditional preflight Terminal
Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT). The sessions allow shuttle astronauts
to take a look
at their spacecraft, its cargo and emergency equipment before launch day.
"We're
really looking forward to getting off on a good start on the mission," Polansky
told reporters Wednesday.
Polansky
and his crew are expected to spend 12 days in orbit to continue assembly of the
International Space Station. The astronauts are expected to perform three
spacewalks to install a new portside truss segment, realign the ISS to its
primary power system and switch on the station's main cooling system.
Discovery's
STS-116 spaceflight is slated to launch at about 9:36 p.m. EST (0236 Dec. 8
GMT) and will mark NASA's third shuttle flight this year and the first night
liftoff since 2002.
NASA's last
three
shuttle flights launched during daylight to give clear views of the
orbiters' external fuel tank foam insulation, a debris concern following the 2003 Columbia accident. But
officials are confident that illumination from Discovery's twin booster rockets
and powerful radar tools will allow them to track any debris during launch.
Later
tonight, NASA engineers are scheduled to fire a shuttle solid rocket booster
engine in darkness during a two-minute performance test at a Utah facility. The
test will be recorded by cameras to better gauge the lighting produced during
night launches, NASA officials said.
"For us we
don't really view it as a really large change," Polansky said of night launches.
"We feel we'll be able to assess the health of the vehicle before we deorbit
and come home."
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