CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The impending peak of
hurricane season, a potential space-station parts problem and some hangar repair work, prompted shuttle Discovery to take a slight detour at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) today. But agency officials say the ship and a crew of American and Japanese astronauts still should be ready for a planned October 5
launch on what will be NASAs historic 100th space-shuttle mission. "Right now, there is no expected impact to the launch date," said KSC spokesman Joel Wells. "Weve got time to do this, and were trying to do the prudent thing."
Heres the story:
Discovery had been scheduled to move from a processing hangar to the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where it eventually will be outfitted with an external tank and twin solid-fuel rocket
boosters before heading out to the launch pad.The winged orbiter, however, now is going to rolled into another nearby hangar while NASA officials ponder a couple of potentially vexing problems.
First off, the upcoming peak of the hurricane season and the looming presence of Tropical Storm Debby are making officials think twice about the risk involved with having fully-assembled shuttles at both of KSCs beachside launch pads.
Shuttle Atlantis sits at Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A the night before a launch planned for April 24, 2000.
Sister-ship Atlantis now is at launch pad 39B, where it is being readied for a September 8 liftoff, and Discovery was supposed to move out to nearby pad 39A on August 30.
But NASA officials despite the recent opening of a new hurricane safe haven for shuttles still are a bit reticent when it comes to exposing half of its $8 billion shuttle fleet to potentially deadly tropical storms.
"The area of concern we have is not related to where we would put the shuttles. Its related to the strain you would put on the work force if you had to quickly move two orbiters back from the pads," said James Hartsfield, a spokesman for NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"You never know how much warning you are going to have, and that would be a lot of work."
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The month of September traditionally is the peak of hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30 each year. And Tropical Storm Debby which is 400 miles (645 Kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands today - could move toward the coast of central Florida.
NASA managers, consequently, dont want to start outfitting Discovery with an external tank and booster rockets in the VAB until a decision is made.
So why not just keep the ship right where it is?
Two words: Hangar repairs.
NASA already had planned to start some refurbishment work inside Discoverys hangar next week. Rather than delay the work, managers decided to temporarily move the shuttle into an empty hangar next to the VAB.
The temporary move also will give NASA officials time to contemplate a potential problem with critical flight-control gyroscopes Discovery will be hauling up to the station.
NASA engineers recently found that the devices which will play a crucial role in keeping the outpost properly positioned in space might fail when exposed to extremely cold temperatures.
The potential problem was discovered when the sensors on a set of spare
station gyroscopes failed manufacturing tests. Hartsfield said engineers are analyzing the situation to see if the gyroscopes to be flown on Discovery might also be flawed."They are working under the assumption that the gyroscopes on [Discoverys flight] could be susceptible to similar failures," he said.
Engineers, however, think the potential problem can be rectified by simply turning up the thermostat on heaters to make certain the sensors stay warm enough to operate properly in low Earth orbit, where temperatures can dip to minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 157 degrees Celsius).
The gyroscope analysis is expected to conclude by the middle of next week. A decision on whether to move Discovery out of temporary storage and out to the launch pad is expected about that same time.
In any case, Hartsfield said NASA is in no big hurry with Discovery and its cargo, which also includes the first piece of the stations 356-foot (108 meter) central truss.
"Were way ahead with [launch preparations], so theres no rush to get to the VAB," he said. "We could even roll out to the pad after the September 8 launch of Atlantis and still launch Discovery on October 5."
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