WASHINGTON
- Fresh on the heels of a successful flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA
is again gearing up to launch a space shuttle into orbit, but bad weather could
delay the June spaceflight, mission managers said Thursday.
NASA hopes to
launch the shuttle Endeavour on June 13 to deliver the last piece of Japan's
massive Kibo
laboratory to the International Space Station during a marathon 16-day
construction flight. The hopes to build on the momentum from the recent Hubble
service call, which ended last Sunday when the shuttle Atlantis landed in
California.
"We're
going to do it again now," said John Shannon, NASA's space shuttle program
manager, in a Thursday briefing.
But
Endeavour's space
station mission has a slim three-day window in which to fly and bad weather
in Florida has already delayed the shuttle's planned Saturday move to its
launch pad by a day.
"Really, if
we don't start to roll on Saturday, then it's going to be a day-for-day impact
for the launch," Shannon said. "It's getting very tight."
Stormy
weather
Thunderstorms
at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., prevented shuttle
technicians from priming Endeavour for its Saturday morning move to a new
launch pad.
The shuttle
is now slated for a predawn Sunday move to the seaside Launch Pad 39A from its
current perch atop the nearby Pad 39B, where it was on standby to fly a rescue
mission during the Hubble flight. No rescue was ever required.
Shannon
said it is possible that shuttle technicians could make up the lost time and
keep the June 13 target, but he has ordered teams not to rush.
"If the
weather doesn't cooperate, then it doesn't cooperate," Shannon said.
Endeavour
has until June 15 in which to launch toward the station, after which NASA plans
to stand down to allow the June 17 liftoff of a rocket carrying a pair of moon
probes - the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS impactor - which have weathered
a series of flight delays.
If NASA
cannot launch Endeavour in June, the next opportunity would arise on July 12. A
slip to July should not impact plans to launch at least two more shuttle
missions after Endeavour's later this year, Shannon said.
Shannon
said Endeavour's mission may also hinge on when the Atlantis can be returned to
Florida from its Southern California landing site at Edwards Air Force Base.
Engineers
want to make sure a wiring problem that caused a short circuit during Atlantis'
May 11 launch will not affect Endeavour, but must wait for the shuttle to be
ferried home atop a modified 747 jumbo jet. That process should take about a
week, weather permitting.
Ambitious
flight ahead
Endeavour
commander Mark Polansky, who leads the shuttle's six-man, one-woman crew, said
his crew is hoping for an on-time launch, but is prepared for a schedule slip.
"I don't worry
about the things that I have no control over," Polansky told reporters
Thursday. "For us, we have a mission to do...we know that when we do, our job is
to be ready and carry out the mission and that's what we intend to do."
Polansky and
his crew have a daunting mission ahead. It is only the second time that NASA
has intentionally scheduled a long, 16-day mission to the space station. Five
spacewalks are planned to install a porch-like experiment platform to the end
of the station's Japanese Kibo lab, deliver vital spare parts and perform
maintenance work.
A
one-person swap is also on tap for the station's soon-to-be full, six-person
crew. The station is slated to double its crew size to six people early
Friday with the arrival of a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft carrying three new crewmembers.
Endeavour's
mission will be the first ever to see 13 people aboard the space station. Past
station-bound shuttle flights, in which the outpost was home to three
crewmembers, saw maximum populations of 10 people.
Kirk
Shireman, NASA's deputy station program manager, said the jump to 13 people at
the station will push the outpost's air-scrubbing capability to its limit. It
will also require careful coordination of the station's communications,
exercise, sleeping and bathroom facilities.
"We've
tried to think of all those things related to having additional people on
board," Shireman said. "I think we have a good plan for this."
SPACE.com will provide live coverage of the
International Space Station's jump to a full six-person crew on Friday
beginning at 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT). Click
here for live station docking coverage, mission updates and SPACE.com's NASA TV video feed.
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