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NASA Shoots for February 11 to Launch Endeavour
By Glen Golightly
Houston Bureau Chief
posted: 11:11 am ET
03 February 2000
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shuttle_date_000203 HOUSTON - Shuttle mission managers decided this morning to aim for February 11 to launch Endeavour on a radar mapping mission. Launch time should be 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time with a 2 hour, 10 minute launch window. If Endeavour launches on time, landing should be on February 22 at 4:38 p.m. EST. NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham said technicians will replace one of Endeavour's master events controllers (MEC) Thursday. This technical glitch, along with bad weather, contributed to the scrubbed launch Monday. The controller, one of two aboard the shuttle, commands both the ignition of the twin solid rocket boosters and their jettisoning two minutes into flight. Technicians will spend the next few days testing the controller and re-hooking the booster's pyrotechnics. "Folks are starting to get back into their activities," Buckingham said. "We're eager to get off the ground and think we have a good mission ahead of us." The earliest date available after Monday's scrub was February 12, but the postponement of an Air Force Titan 4 launch cleared Endeavour to launch one day earlier. It takes at least 24 hours to reconfigure the range between launches or tests. A February 10 dress rehearsal for the Titan liftoff called for fueling and a practice countdown 10 days before launch, but a glitch in the rockets system postponed the process, effectively clearing the range for Endeavours launch on February 11. No final date has been reset to launch the Titan, said 1st Lt. Alana Austin from the Air Forces 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral. NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said the space agency also has February 12 available should weather or other problems postpone the launch. "The range is scheduled to be open through February 16, so its conceivable wed have several more attempts," Hartsfield said.
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