NASA
engineers are testing new hydraulic seals aboard the space shuttle Discovery after
a swift week of repair work to ready the orbiter for a planned October launch.
Shuttle
workers installed the new seals after detecting
a leak in one of four attached to a shock absorbing strut on Discovery's right
main landing gear. NASA postponed plans to begin attaching the shuttle to
its external tank and rocket boosters this week at the Kennedy Space Center
(KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida to repair the faulty seal.
"It went
quite well and there really weren't any surprises," NASA spokesperson George
Diller told SPACE.com of the repair work.
So far, NASA
shuttle workers have been able to complete the repairs within a five-day buffer
built into Discovery's preparation schedule for its planned Oct. 23 launch to the
International Space Station (ISS), Diller said.
Engineers plan
to perform checks on their seal repair work through Saturday, Diller said. If
the tests go well, Discovery is due to roll out of its work hangar on Sunday at
5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT) and be mated to its external fuel tank and solid
rocket boosters inside the cavernous, 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building at
KSC.
After about
a week of work, Discovery would then roll out to its seaside launch pad on
Sept. 30, NASA officials said.
Commanded
by veteran
shuttle flyer Pamela Melroy, Discovery's STS-120 mission will deliver a new
connecting node to the ISS, swap one station crewmember and relocate an older
solar array segment outside the orbital laboratory. She and her six shuttle
crewmates plan to perform five spacewalks to install the new node, move the
solar array module and test shuttle heat shield techniques during their 14-day
mission.
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