CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA claimed victory in its struggle to fix crucial International Space Station computers Saturday, setting the stage for shuttle Endeavours departure Sunday and the on-time arrival Monday of a Soyuz taxi and space tourist Dennis Tito.
In what amounted to a dramatic turn of events, ground engineers finally recovered a backup command-and control-computer after a massive troubleshooting effort that stretched around the clock for four days.
"We have good news," astronaut Lisa Nowak told the joint shuttle-station crew from NASAs Mission Control Center in Houston after data frames began flowing between the backup computer and earthbound engineers.
"Now for the rest of the world other than all of the computer folks, is that, like, real good? Like is that the final step?" U.S. station flight engineer Jim Voss replied.
"Its definitely a step in the right direction," Nowak said. "Were not finished with all our steps, but things are looking good right now."
Minutes later, the revival of the backup computer was confirmed. Delighted engineers still were pondering one minor computer hiccup, but Nowak said the recovery was expected to jump-start stalled work the shuttle crew must do before a scheduled outpost departure Sunday.
And if that work is completed in time, Tito and the Soyuz taxi crew which includes spacecraft commander Talgat Musabayev and flight engineer Yuri Baturin will pull in to the station as scheduled at 3:52 a.m. EDT (07:52 GMT) Monday.
"Nice work down there," Voss said.
"Thanks," Nowak replied. "Well see if we can keep [the computers] operating."
All three of the stations main U.S. command-and-control computers inexplicably crashed in sequence late Tuesday and then Wednesday, stalling work on what up until then had been a textbook mission to deliver a new Canadian robot arm to the station.
The computers are crucial to sending commands to all U.S. station systems and routing data on the health of those systems back to Earth.
One of those computers was brought back on line Thursday. NASA ground engineers since then had been toiling day and night to power a backup.
New software was loaded into the backup Saturday but initial attempts to boot it up failed. A second software load did the trick.
An error message from the stations prime control computer was under investigation, and troubleshooting work with the third machine was underway.
But that work wasnt expected to prompt additional significant delays in the shuttle crews last, but crucial job -- stowing a pallet-like crane carrier in Endeavours cargo bay.
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