CAPE
CANAVERAL,
FL –
A successful valve replacement aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour at Kennedy Space
Center (KSC) has cleared the spacecraft of any air leaks, space agency
officials said Friday.
"The
test went great," said George
Diller, a NASA
spokesperson here at KSC. "Endeavour's cabin is now leak-free."
With
the fix in place, engineers are continuing to prepare Endeavour for a planned Aug.
7 launch to carry on construction of the International Space Station (ISS). The
shuttle and its seven-astronaut STS-118 crew are slated to lift off at about
7:02 p.m. EDT (2302 GMT) Tuesday and rendezvous with the ISS two days later.
Endeavour's
faulty valve was one of two in the orbiter's crew cabin, and is designed to
relieve excess air to prevent over-pressurization of the shuttle.
The
successful check came after a faulty positive pressure release valve was
discovered during an
earlier inspection, and was replaced yesterday with one of shuttle
Atlantis' working valves. Diller explained that engineers made the switch
because getting a brand new valve would have taken too much time and pushed
back the launch date.
Diller
noted that the leak "was considerably greater" than NASA allows.
"Over
time, the kind of leak we found would not have been a safe situation," he
said. Diller added that the length of the current mission made fixing the leak
a top priority, as reserves of air could have run dangerously low.
With
the repair a success, Endeavour's STS-118
crew is expected to arrive today at KSC in preparation for next week's
launch.
Commanded
by veteran astronaut Scott Kelly, Endeavour's crew will deliver a fresh load of
cargo, spare parts and a new starboard-side piece of the ISS during an
11-to-14-day mission. The flight also marks the first launch for teacher-turned-astronaut
Barbara Morgan, who first
joined NASA's ranks in 1985 as the backup for Teacher in Space Christa
McAuliffe. McAuliffe and six NASA astronauts died in January 1986 when their
space shuttle Challenger broke apart just after launch.
Morgan
and her STS-118 crewmates are due to arrive at KSC in T-38 supersonic jet
trainers at about 5:00 p.m. ET (2100 GMT).
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