The shuttle Endeavour settles to runway 15 after a smooth descent.
(Photo: NASA TV)
By William Harwood
CBS News/Kennedy Space Center
The following copy originally was posted on the Current Mission space page at http://cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html.
Comments, suggestions and corrections welcome!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
11:05 AM, 7/31/09: Shuttle Endeavour lands in Florida
(UPDATED at 12:40 p.m. with quotes from commander; UPDATED at 3:30 p.m. with comments from Wakata)
The shuttle Endeavour glided to a landing at the Kennedy Space Center today, wrapping up a marathon 16-day space station construction mission and bringing Japan's first long-duration astronaut back to Earth after four-and-a-half months in weightlessness.
Dropping out of a partly cloudy sky, commander Mark Polansky pulled the shuttle's nose up just before reaching the runway, pilot Douglas Hurley deployed the spaceplane's landing gear and Endeavour settled to a picture-perfect landing at 10:48:08 a.m. EDT.
The shuttle Endeavour settles to runway 15 after a smooth descent.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Barreling down the runway at more than 200 mph, Hurley released a red-and-white braking parachute, the shuttle's nose dropped to the runway and Polansky guided the ship to a stop on the runway centerline.
"Houston, Endeavour, wheels stopped," he radioed in a traditional post-landing call to mission control.
"Roger wheels stopped, Endeavour. Welcome home," astronaut Alan Poindexter replied from the Johnson Space Center. "Congratulations on a superb mission from beginning to end. Very well done."
"Well, thanks to you and the whole team," Polansky said. "That's what it's all about. And we're happy to be home."
Mission duration was 15 days 16 hours 44 minutes and 58 seconds for a voyage spanning 248 complete orbits and 6.5 million miles since blastoff July 15 from launch complex 39A.
Polansky, Hurley, flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn doffed their pressure suits and left the shuttle and their crew transport vehicle about an hour-and-a-half after landing, welcomed home by new NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other senior managers and engineers.
"What a fantastic mission!" Polansky said on the runway after a brief walk-around inspection of Endeavour. "We are thrilled to be a part of a team that is able to accomplish missions like this. ... What can we say but thanks to everybody at the Kennedy Space Center for working so hard on Endeavour. It's a beautiful vehicle and we enjoyed every minute of it. Hopefully we brought it back in good shape.
"We're going to make this short because we'd actually like to go see our families. So thank you all very much."
The shuttle Endeavour's braking chute slows the craft after landing.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata, launched to the International Space Station aboard the shuttle Discovery last March, made the return to Earth on the eve of his 46th birthday resting on his back in a recumbent seat on the shuttle's lower deck to ease his return to gravity.
But he apparently had no major problems with his initial re-adaptation, appearing at a crew news conference four hours after landing.
"I feel great," he said. "When the hatch opened, I really smelled the grass from the ground and just glad to be back home. I'm feeling great. Still feeling a little shaky when I walk, but I'm feeling very good."
Wakata's stay in space was extended a month when Endeavour's launch was delayed from June 13 to July 15 by technical problems and bad weather. Asked what he was looking forward to the most after reunions with family and friends, Wakata said sushi, cold noodles and visit to a hot spring back home.
"Tomorrow will be my 46th birthday," he said after landing. "I'm just looking forward to having a lot of sushi and birthday cake. I think it's in production somewhere, so I'm very much looking forward to that.
"You invited your whole crew, right?" Polansky joked.
"Yes," Wakata laughed. "Can you handle raw fish?"
Endeavour's crew ferried Wakata's replacement into orbit - astronaut Timothy Kopra - and carried out five spacewalks to attach an experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module, replacing aging solar array batteries and attaching three spare components to the station's main truss.
The astronauts also released a jammed payload attachment mechanism, installed television cameras on the Japanese experiment shelf and made a wiring change to put two of the station's stabilizing gyroscopes on separate circuits, easing concerns about a single failure that could take down both units.
"We got everything accomplished aboard space station that we needed to with this mission," said Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of space operations at NASA headquarters. "The planning was outstanding, the work was excellent, the vehicle performed extremely well.
With Endeavour back on the ground, NASA is pressing ahead with work to ready the shuttle Discovery for launch around Aug. 25 on a mission to deliver supplies and equipment to the space station.
Rollout to launch pad 39A is targeted for Monday, after additional work to test the foam insulation on the central part of Discovery's external tank. The tests were ordered in the wake of problems during Endeavour's launch when an unusual amount of "intertank" foam peeled off during the climb to space.
Most of the debris came off after Endeavour was out of the dense lower atmosphere when the shuttle's heat shield is most vulnerable to impact damage. But engineers want to make sure there is not a generic problem of some sort that might also affect the performance of Discovery's tank.
Engineers already had pull tested some 150 foam cores around the intertank of ET-132, but an additional 18 "plug-pull" tests were ordered Thursday.
Still unresolved is what caused the foam to come off in the first place. It's not yet clear whether a "root cause" must be in hand and understood before Discovery can be cleared for flight or whether the pull tests and data analysis alone will be enough.
Kopra and his new space station crewmates - Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka, Michael Barratt, Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk - hoped to watch Endeavour's landing via television uplinked from mission control.
Barratt and Thirsk continued repair work today to recover use of the station's U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, which was knocked out of action last weekend and again Wednesday by a presumed short circuit in a heating element.
The astronauts spent the entire day Thursday trying to repair the complex device before running into questions about how to isolate the suspect heater element. Engineers are hopeful the repairs can be completed later today.
9:45 AM, 7/31/09: Braking rockets fired
Commander Mark Polansky and pilot Douglas Hurley fired the shuttle Endeavour's twin braking rockets at 9:41:10 a.m. EDT for two minutes and 51 seconds, slowing the ship by about 207 mph and dropping it out of orbit. Landing on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center is expected around 10:48 a.m.
"Endeavour, Houston, good burn. No trim required," called astronaut Alan Poindexter from mission control.
"Copy and concur," Polansky replied.
There are no technical problems of any significance and forecasters are expecting light winds and scattered clouds at landing time. This status report will be updated after Endeavour lands or as warranted.
8:25 AM, 7/31/09: Payload bay doors closed; weather assessment continues; deorbit TIG adjusted
Forecasters say the weather near the Kennedy Space Center is developing about as expected, with light winds, scattered clouds and a high broken deck at 30,000 feet. One area of concern is an area of showers southeast of the spaceport but flight controllers are hopeful they won't get closer than 30 nautical miles.
Flight controllers assess the weather in Florida. (Photo: NASA TV)
"The latest (observation) is about what we expected, a few (clouds) at 3,500 (feet), few at 10 and overcast at 30," astronaut Alan Poindexter radioed from mission control shortly after 8 a.m. EDT. "Winds are still light and variable. We are tracking a few showers and thunderstorms out off shore to the southeast, we're keeping an eye on those. But so far, everything is developing about like we expected."
"All right, we will keep our fingers crossed," replied shuttle commander Mark Polansky. "Thanks."
Endeavour's payload bay doors were closed and latched shortly after 7 a.m. Flight controllers have updated the timing of today's deorbit rocket firing, telling the astronauts to set up for a two-minute 51-second "burn" starting at 9:41:10 a.m., 52 seconds earlier than initial estimates. Landing remains targeted for 10:48 a.m., weather permitting.
6:30 AM, 7/31/09: Astronauts prepare for landing; weather forecast improves slightly
The Endeavour astronauts are rigging the shuttle for re-entry and landing today at the Kennedy Space Center to close out a 16-day space station assembly mission. The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston is predicting scattered clouds, light winds and only a slight chance of showers within 30 nautical miles of the runway.
Commander Mark Polansky and his crewmates have two opportunities on successive orbits to return to Earth today, the first with a deorbit burn at 9:42 a.m. EDT, setting up a touchdown on runway 15 at 10:48 a.m. The second opportunity begins with a deorbit rocket firing at 11:16 a.m. and a landing at 12:22 p.m.
If the weather or some other problem prevents a re-entry today, Endeavour's crew will remain in orbit an additional 24 hours and try again Saturday.
Because Endeavour only has enough carbon dioxide-absorbing lithium hydroxide to make it through Sunday, entry Flight Director Bryan Lunney said he would direct the crew to land Saturday, on one coast or the other, if today's attempts are waved off.
"It's Florida, it's summer, so there's always, in my mind, kind of a chance of rain there," Lunney told reporters Thursday. "Right now ... things are looking really good for us."
Joining Polansky aboard Endeavour is pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata, who will make the trip back to Earth resting on his back in a recumbent seat to ease his transition to gravity after four-and-a-half months in weightlessness.
Today's re-entry timeline calls for payload bay door closing around 7 a.m. and the transition to OPS-3 entry software around 7:25 a.m. The astronauts will review entry procedures around 8 a.m. and begin donning their orange pressure suits about 15 minutes later.
Assuming the weather cooperates, Polansky and Hurley will fire Endeavour's twin braking rockets for three minutes and four seconds beginning at 9:42 a.m., slowing the ship by 218 mph. After a half-hour free fall, the shuttle will enter the discernible atmosphere over the south Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 76 miles at 10:16 a.m.
Covering 5,000 miles over the next half hour, Endeavour's flight path will carry it over Central America just northwest of Panama before a descent across the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba. Flying up the heart of the south Florida peninsula, Polansky plans to take over manual control at an altitude of 50,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center, guiding the shuttle through a sweeping left turn to line up on runway 15.
Flight surgeons will be standing by to assist Wakata, who was launched to the station aboard the shuttle Discovery last March and whose space station stay was extended a month when Endeavour's launching was delayed by hydrogen leaks and bad weather.
5:45 PM, 7/30/09: Shorted heater element found; engineers optimistic about CDRA repair
Astronauts Michael Barratt and Robert Thirsk found a shorted heater element today that may explain what knocked the space station's U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly out of action last weekend and again Wednesday, a senior NASA manager said.
Space station Program Manager Michael Suffredini said the astronauts were told to isolate the suspect heater element and to install a new heater controller. When the CDRA is re-assembled either late today or Friday, engineers are optimistic it will power up and work normally.
"Once that's complete, we'll put the CDRA back together and based on finding this anomaly, we're confident it'll activate and we'll be back to full capacity in the carbon dioxide removal system," Suffredini said.
The space station's six-man crew relies on the CDRA and a Russian device known as the Vozdukh to scrub CO2 from the lab's air supply. Both systems are required to support six crew members, although a limited supply of CO2 absorbing lithium hydroxide, or LIOH, is available as a short-term backup.
Last weekend, the CDRA shut down and a circuit breaker tripped when a heater failed to operate properly. Engineers came up with a manual technique for operating the complex device that restored it to near-normal operation using secondary heaters. Later, a software patch was uplinked, returning the CDRA to automatic operation.
"Last night, we were reconfiguring the CDRA, amongst other components that were operating on backup strings (circuits), we were reconfiguring back to their primary power strings and when we went to reactivateÊthe carbon dioxide removal assembly ... we could not get it to reactivate," Suffredini said.
After analyzing telemetry, "it all pointed back to the anomaly we had on the primary heater string earlier during the mission. With that information we concluded that perhaps we had a short in one of the (12) heater pads. There are a number of heater pads in each of the beds in the carbon dioxide removal assembly. We had determined that we believe one of the beds primary string heaters had a short that perhaps had finally affected the secondary heater."
Today, engineers asked the crew to go into the CDRA, check each heater element and replace a heater controller assembly.
"The crew got in there and sure enough, the very first heater pad they checked did, in fact, have a short on the primary leg and what appears to be an open (circuit) on the secondary string," Suffredini said. "The rest of the heater pads checked out OK. With that information, they went on to change out the controller."
Engineers were finalizing instructions for cutting wires to isolate the faulty heater pad late Thursday. Once that is done and the system is fully reassembled, engineers will attempt to restart the CDRA.
The CDRA issue focused attention on how long the station could support a six-man crew if one of the lab's major CO2 scrubbing systems went down.
The current Vozdukh is operating at less than full capacity, scrubbing the CO2 output of just 2.2 crew members, Suffredini said. Without the CDRA, the crew would have to use lithium hydroxide canisters to supplement the Vozdukh and there are limited amounts of LIOH aboard the station: 17 U.S. canisters and 15 Russian cans.
U.S. LIOH canisters can support two crew members per day while the Russian versions can support up to three astronauts per day.
Components for a replacement Vozdukh also are on board and if the new unit is activated at some point, Russian engineers believe it could service five crew members and possibly six if mission managers agreed to permit a slightly higher partial pressure of CO2 - 6 mm of Mercury - in the station air supply.
"Right now, today, the Vozdukh in our assessment and some testing we did on orbit is scrubbing the atmosphere for about 2.2 crew," Suffredini said. "And that's debated a little bit, it depends on what level of PPCO2 you're managing at, but we say about 2.2 crew. So if you don't change out the Vozdukh today with the spare that's on orbit and you assume 2.2 crew, then you're going to consume many more LIOH cans ... to make up for the remaining 3.8 crew members that are on orbit.
"So one scenario is that scenario," he said. "One scenario is the Vozdukh's not working and the CDRA's not working, how much LIOH do you have? The next scenario is replacing the Vozdukh. As early as late yesterday, it was our understanding the (replacement) Vozdukh could scrub for about five crew, and in that case we thought we could get a couple of months out of the system (without the CDRA).
"This afternoon even, we were informed by our Russian colleaguesÊthat they believe the new Vozdukh could even scrub for six crew, and I'm assuming that's going to be at a PP/CO2 level at about six millimeters of Mercury, which is high, but certainly OK for short periods of time."
It might even work indefinitely, he said. But in the near term, engineers are focused on returning the CDRA to normal operation and avoiding the issue entirely.
03:10 PM, 7/30/09: Flight director optimistic about Friday landing weather
Optimistic the weather will cooperate for a morning landing, entry Flight Director Bryan Lunney said Thursday NASA will only staff the Kennedy Space Center for back-to-back landing opportunities Friday in hopes of bringing the shuttle Endeavour back to Florida.
But Endeavour only has enough carbon dioxide-absorbing lithium hydroxide for two additional days in orbit and if the weather or some other problem forces a wave off Friday, backup landing sites will be activated and Endeavour will return to Earth, on one coast or the other, on Saturday.
"We're only going to try KSC tomorrow," Lunney said. "If for whatever reason, the weather or some such thing we don't get there, on Saturday that's what we'll call 'pick 'em' day and we'll be coming home Saturday to whichever site is available from a weather perspective."
Overnight, engineers assessed laser scans from a post-undocking inspection of the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels, which experience the most extreme heating during re-entry. No problems were found and mission managers cleared the shuttle's heat shield for entry as planned.
Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata plan to close the shuttle's cargo bay doors around 7 a.m. EDT Friday to set the stage for landing.
Assuming the weather cooperates, Polansky and Hurley will fire Endeavour's twin braking rockets for three minutes and four seconds starting at 9:42:02 a.m., slowing the ship by 218 mph to drop out of orbit.
The shuttle will hit the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 76 miles at 10:16 a.m., gliding the remaining 5,000 miles to the Kennedy Space Center. Flying almost due north over Central America and Cuba, Endeavour's flight path will carry the ship across southern Florida before a sweeping left turn to line up on runway 15. Touchdown is targeted for 10:48:20 a.m.
A second deorbit opportunity is available one orbit later, at 11:16:55 a.m., setting up a landing at 12:22:42 p.m. Multiple landing opportunities are available Saturday, starting at 11:08 a.m. at Kennedy and ending at 3:48 p.m. EDT at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
"Weather, as you know, in Florida is always kind of a challenge," Lunney said. "In a typical sea breeze situation, the winds come in off the ocean, that'll interact with the atmosphere and possibly cause some rain or thundershowers. We think, from monitoring what's happened the past few days and from looking ahead, that it won't start up until later, towards noon.
"Our landing, of course, is before noon," he said. "They were thinking between one o'clock, two o'clock out there it would start raining, or a good chance of starting to rain. The proof, of course, will come tomorrow. ... Right now, it's Florida, it's summer, so there's always, in my mind, kind of a chance of rain there.
"But in the morning, we'll have a much better sense of how that particular day is going to play out for us. Right now, the models, the predicts and looking at what's happened today, things are looking really good for us."
The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston is predicting a few clouds at 3,000 feet, scattered clouds at 8,000 feet, a broken deck at 25,000 feet, light winds out of the south-southeast and a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms within 30 nautical miles of the runway. The chance for rain increases for the second opportunity one orbit later.
Here are updated timelines for Friday's deorbit opportunities (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT Rev. 248 Deorbit to KSC Deorbit burn: 09:42:02 AM Change in velocity (dV): 218 mph Burn duration (dT): 03:04 Crossrange: 760 sm Range from EI to KSC: 5,033 sm Turn: 215-degree left turn to runway 15 05:42 AM......Begin deorbit timeline 05:57 AM......Radiator stow 06:07 AM......Mission specialists seat installation 06:13 AM......Computers set for deorbit prep 06:17 AM......Hydraulic system configuration 06:42 AM......Flash evaporator checkout 06:48 AM......Final payload deactivation 07:02 AM......Payload bay doors closed 07:12 AM......Mission control 'go' for OPS-3 07:22 AM......OPS-3 transition 07:47 AM......Entry switchlist verification 07:57 AM......Deorbit PAD update 08:02 AM......Crew entry review 08:17 AM......CDR/PLT don entry suits 08:34 AM......IMU alignment 08:42 AM......CDR/PLT strap in; MS suit don 08:59 AM......Shuttle steering check 09:02 AM......Hydraulic system prestart 09:09 AM......Toilet deactivation 09:22 AM......MCC 'go' for deorbit burn 09:28 AM......MS seat ingress 09:37 AM......Single APU start 09:42:02 AM...Deorbit ignition 09:45:06 AM...Deorbit burn complete 10:16:35 AM...Entry interface 10:21:42 AM...1st roll command to left 10:35:20 AM...C-band radar acquisition 10:36:06 AM...1st left-to-right roll reversal 10:41:59 AM...Velocity less than mach 2.5 10:44:09 AM...Velocity less than mach 1 10:45:08 AM...215-degree left turn to runway 15 10:48:20 AM...Landing Rev. 249 Deorbit to KSC Deorbit ignition: 11:16:55 AM Change in velocity (dV): 218 mph Burn duration (dT): 3:04 Crossrange: 292 sm Range from EI to KSC: 5,086 sm 259 Left turn to runway 15 10:56 AM......MCC 'go' for deorbit burn 11:02 AM......MS seat ingress 11:11 AM......Single APU start 11:16:55 AM...Deorbit ignition 11:19:59 AM...Deorbit burn complete 11:50:54 AM...Entry interface 11:55:57 AM...1st roll command to left 12:05:41 PM...1st left-to-right roll reversal 12:16:13 PM...Velocity less than mach 2.5 12:18:27 PM...Velocity less than mach 1 12:19:07 PM...259-degree left turn to runway 15 12:22:42 PM...Landing
11:40 AM, 7/30/09: Station crew disassembles CDRA; shuttle astronauts complete entry tests
The shuttle Endeavour's crew completed a set of pre-entry tests today and pressed ahead with work to ready the ship for landing Friday at the Kennedy Space Center. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station, meanwhile, disassembled the lab's U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly for work to replace a suspect controller.
The CDRA failed to restart after a post-undocking reconfiguration, leaving the station's six-man crew with a single CO2 scrubber in the Russian segment of the lab complex. Telemetry indicates a controller assembly in the CDRA may have been responsible for a shut down last weekend as well as the latest problem.
Michael Barratt and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk first attempted to re-power the complex device using what amounts to jumper cables, but that did not work. They then removed a large CDRA component and began work to replace the suspect heater controller.
Some (dis)assembly required. Michael Barratt and Robert Thirsk
review plans for a complex repair of the space station's
carbon dioxide removal assembly. (Credit: NASA TV)
The station's six-man crew relies on the CDRA and a Russian device known as the Vozdukh to scrub CO2 from the lab's air supply. Both systems are required to support six crew members. Lithium hydroxide canisters are available as a backup if either system fails, but the crew only has enough stockpiled to last about three weeks.
While the space station crew was pressing ahead with the CDRA repair, the Endeavour astronauts - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata - took a few moments to discuss their mission with reporters on Earth.
Polansky said he's looking forward to landing Friday at the Kennedy Space Center, weather permitting.
"Frankly, I do think it's time to come back," he told The Associated Press. "We've accomplished our primary objectives successfully and safely. I think that on missions like this you sort of gear yourself psychologically for what it is that you're supposed to do. If we were long-duration crew members, we might sit there and say well, it's only been 16 days. But we expected to be on a mission this long, so I'm ready to get back. Personally, I really miss my family, so I'm looking forward to seeing them."
Asked if he had any concerns about being fresh for landing after 16 days in weightlessness, Polansky deadpanned "well, I hope not, that would be kind of bad, but I think I have a landing in me."
"We've practiced this a bunch, we just did a little bit of practice this morning on one of our flight simulator computers just to get us back into the game," he said. "Hopefully you guys will clear all the clouds away so we'll have a really nice arrival into the Kennedy Space Center."
Landing is targeted for 10:48 a.m. EDT Friday.
6:20 AM, 7/30/09: Space station CO2 fails restart; shuttle crew tests re-entry systems, packs for Friday landing
The Endeavour astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems today before packing up for the trip back to Earth Friday to close out a 16-day space station assembly mission. There are no technical problems of any significance, but forecasters are predicting a slight chance for rain and thunderstorms near Endeavour's Florida runway at the 10:48 a.m. EDT landing time.
Aboard the International Space Station, meanwhile, flight engineer Michael Barratt reviewed plans to troubleshoot another problem with the lab's U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, which is currently out of action after a restart failure.
The station's six-man crew relies on the CDRA and a Russian device known as the Vozdukh to scrub CO2 from the lab's air supply. Both systems are required to support six crew members, but lithium hydroxide canisters are available as a backup if either system fails.
An apparent heater controller problem caused a CDRA shutdown and circuit breaker trip last weekend. Engineers initially came up with a manual work-around and then a software patch to bypass the open circuit breaker, returning the CDRA to normal operation. Early today, the crew was informed of another problem.
"We had a CDRA failure again, so we'll be needing your assistance with the troubleshooting plan," Zach Jones called from Houston during the crew's morning planning conference. "As you know, during the docked mission the primary heaters on bed 2 failed and we implemented a work around to support the docked mission. Yesterday, during the powerup and restart we noticed that the procedure failed due to a firmware controller on bed 2. This is the same bed as the heater failure, so we suspect the controller is what is the problem here.
"Our troubleshooting plan will call for attempting to re-power the CDRA from an alternate power source. ... If that re-power attempt is unsuccessful, we'll have you back out of that jumper config and we'll subsequently perform a firmware controller R & R (replacement). We're still pulling together that plan and we anticipate starting that activity around 12:30 GMT. We'll have Mike as the prime crew member performing the task, probably with Bob (Thirsk) assisting throughout. We anticipate the task to take a total of six hours and we'll be clearing your schedule in the afternoon to accommodate the R & R task.
"If this plan is unsuccessful for whatever reason, we will have a plan in place to install LIOH canisters prior to crew sleep."
More than 1,000 miles ahead of the space station in a slightly lower orbit, Endeavour commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley and flight engineer Julie Payette worked through a standard day-before-entry timeline, testing the ship's hydraulic power system, steering jets and control systems.
Endeavour's (mostly) empty payload bay. (Credit: NASA TV)
Along with finishing work to stow loose gear, the astronauts also planned to break out their pressure suits and set up a recumbent seat for returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata to ease his return to gravity after four months in the weightlessness of space.
There were no problems of any significance during the flight control system checkout and while one forward thruster failed a "hot-fire" test, flight controllers said it would have no impact on entry.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision P of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 02:03 AM...14...08...00...STS crew wakeup 04:28 AM...14...10...25...PILOT operations 05:13 AM...14...11...10...Cabin stow 05:28 AM...14...11...25...FCS checkout 07:03 AM...14...13...00...SEITE-2 thruster plume experiment 07:24 AM...14...13...21...Orbit adjust rocket firing 07:28 AM...14...13...25...RCS hotfire (actual: about 4:40 AM) 08:00 AM...14...13...57...Augustine committee hearing 08:33 AM...14...14...30...Dragon deploy 09:18 AM...14...15...15...Crew meal 10:18 AM...14...16...15...PAO event 10:38 AM...14...16...35...Deorbit review 01:00 PM...14...18...57...Mission status briefing 01:22 PM...14...19...19...ANDE deploy 01:28 PM...14...19...25...Ergometer stow 01:53 PM...14...19...50...Recumbent seat setup 01:58 PM...14...19...55...Wing leading edge sensor deact 02:18 PM...14...20...15...PGSC stow (part 1) 02:23 PM...14...20...20...LES checkout 02:53 PM...14...20...50...KU antenna stow 04:00 PM...14...21...57...Post-MMT briefing 06:03 PM...15...00...00...Crew sleep begins 07:00 PM...15...00...57...Daily highlights
Endeavour has two landing opportunities at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday. NASA is not staffing its backup landing sites at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., or Northrup Strip at White Sands, N.M. But the shuttle only has enough CO2-scrubbing lithium hydroxide to remain in orbit until Sunday. If bad weather or a technical issue prevents a Friday landing, NASA will staff the backup sites Saturday.
As of Wednesday evening, the Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston was predicting scattered clouds at 8,000 feet, a broken deck at 25,000 feet, light winds out of the south-southeast and a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms within 30 nautical miles of the runway. The chance for rain increases for the second opportunity one orbit later.
Here is a list of all landing opportunities through Sunday (in EDT throughout; best viewed with fixed-width font):
ORBIT...SITE...DEORBIT.......LANDING Friday, July 31 248.....KSC...09:42 AM.......10:48 AM (FD 17, nominal end of mission) 249.....KSC...11:16 AM.......12:22 PM Saturday, Aug. 1 264.....KSC...10:05 AM.......11:08 AM (FD 18, EOM+1) 265.....NOR...11:37 AM.......12:39 PM ........KSC...11:41 AM.......12:43 PM 266.....EDW...01:10 PM.......02:12 PM ........NOR...01:12 PM.......02:14 PM 267.....EDW...02:46 PM.......03:48 PM Sunday, Aug. 2 279.....KSC...08:50 AM.......09:53 AM (FD 19, EOM+2) 280.....KSC...10:25 AM.......11:27 AM 281.....EDW...11:55 AM.......12:58 PM ........NOR...11:57 AM.......12:59 PM 282.....EDW...01:30 PM.......02:32 PM ........NOR...01:33 PM.......02:34 PM 283.....EDW...03:07 PM.......04:08 PM
Detailed entry timelines are posted on the CBS News STS-127 Quick-Look page. This page will be updated after a briefing by entry flight director Bryan Lunney at 1 p.m.
07:25 AM, 7/29/09: Padalka takes over manual control of Progress docking; shuttle heat shield inspection in work
Space station commander Gennady Padalka aborted the automated approach of an unmanned Russian Progress supply ship today after a problem of some sort left it in the wrong orientation, taking over manual control and remotely guiding the craft to a picture-perfect docking at 7:12 a.m. EDT.
The view of the space station from the approaching Progress 34
supply ship. (Credit: NASA TV)
"Everything is centered and I'm closing," Padalka reported as he orchestrated a slow approach to the Zvezda command module's aft port. "Point zero seven... contact... very soft contact, very nice... capture."
"All right, Gennady, congratulations," a Russian flight controller radioed.
It was familiar territory for Padalka, one of Russia's most experienced cosmonauts. During his approach to the station in the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft last March, the automated KURS rendezvous system malfunctioned and Padalka had to take over manual control to complete the final stages of his own docking.
Today's rendezvous appeared normal up until the point the Progress should have started its final approach.
"Gennady, it looks like the fly around is over but we're in the completely wrong configuration," Russian flight control radioed. "You need to dock manually. Transition into the TORU mode."
"Yes, in work, I'm going to go ahead and assume control," Padalka replied from inside the Zvezda module.
Padalka guides the Progress to a smooth docking. (Credit: NASA TV)
Once he took over, he reported the Progress responded normally and television views from the cargo ship showed a rock-solid final approach to the aft docking port.
"Hey Mike, first and foremost, a big congratulations to you guys on a tremendous docking," Hal Getzelman radioed from mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was beautiful.
"Yeah, Gennady is top of the line for manual modes," space station flight engineer Michael Barratt replied. "We were all in there watching, he did a great job."
Launched July 24, the Progress 34 spacecraft is loaded with 1,830 pounds of propellant for space station maneuvers, 110 pounds of oxygen, 463 pounds of water and 2,718 pounds of maintenance hardware, spare parts and research equipment.
Flying about 370 miles ahead of the station in a slightly lower orbit, the shuttle Endeavour's crew spent the morning examining the ship's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels in a now-standard post-undocking inspection to look for any signs of impact damage that might have occurred since a similar inspection the day after launch.
Using a laser scanner and cameras on the end of a 50-foot-long boom attached to the shuttle's robot arm, the astronauts began inspecting the ship's the right wing around 6:30 a.m. Once complete, they planned to turn their attention to the nose cap and finally, the left wing.
"We go back to what we did on flight day two, which was the inspection of the wing leading edge using the big boom," commander Mark Polansky said in a NASA interview. "We do pretty much the exact same thing on this day to make sure that we haven't had any damage while we're on orbit from micrometeorites."
The nose cap and wing leading edge panels experience the most extreme heating during re-entry and even minor defects can be serious. Until the inspection is complete and the data analyzed by engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Endeavour will remain close enough to the space station to re-rendezvous if necessary.
Later today, the astronauts will begin packing up for landing Friday at the Kennedy Space Center. Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley and flight engineer Julie Payette will test Endeavour's re-entry systems Thursday while their crewmates - David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata - continue packing.
Two small satellites are scheduled to be launched Thursday - one to test GPS navigation techniques and the other to study the atmosphere - and the astronauts will break out their re-entry pressure suits and the recumbent seat Wakata will use to ease his return to gravity after four months in space.
Landing at the Kennedy Space Center is targeted for 10:48 a.m. Friday, weather permitting.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision P of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/29 03:03 AM...13...09...00...Crew wakeup 05:18 AM...13...11...15...OBSS unberth 06:08 AM...13...12...05...EMU install 06:33 AM...13...12...30...Starboard wing inspection 06:38 AM...13...12...35...EVA unpack and stow 07:00 AM...13...12...57...HD highlights 07:03 AM...13...13...00...EVA entry preps 07:16 AM...13...13...13...Progress 34 docking (actual: 7:12 a.m.) 07:58 AM...13...13...55...PST ISS EVA entry prep 08:13 AM...13...14...10...Nose cap survey 09:00 AM...13...14...57...Augustine committee hearing 09:03 AM...13...15...00...Crew meals begin 10:03 AM...13...16...00...Port wing survey 11:48 AM...13...17...45...OBSS berthing 12:03 PM...13...18...00...Cabin stow 12:30 PM...13...18...27...Mission status briefing 12:48 PM...13...18...45...SRMS powerdown 01:28 PM...13...19...25...SEITE-1 02:03 PM...13...20...00...FRED stow 02:18 PM...13...20...15...LDRI downlink 04:17 PM...13...22...14...Separation burn No. 3 06:03 PM...14...00...00...STS crew sleep begins 07:00 PM...13...18...27...Daily highlights 09:00 PM...14...02...57...HD highlights
2:37 PM, 7/28/09: Station crew photographs space shuttle
While the shuttle Endeavour's crew was carrying out a 360-degree photo survey of the International Space Station Tuesday, cameras aboard the lab complex tracked the shuttle. Here are a few more frame grabs from NASA television.
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
2:15 PM, 7/28/09: Shuttle crew photographs space station
The crew of the shuttle Endeavour beamed down spectacular video of the International Space Station Tuesday during a 360-degree flyaround following undocking. Here are a few frame grabs from NASA television.
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
(Credit: NASA TV)
01:40 PM, 7/28/09: Shuttle Endeavour undocks from space station
With pilot Douglas Hurley at the controls, the shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station Tuesday and slowly pulled away after a five-spacewalk construction mission, leaving the lab complex with a new Japanese experiment platform, fresh solar array batteries, critical spare parts and a new flight engineer.
"Houston, station, (this is) Endeavour on the big loop, we have physical separation," an astronaut reported at 1:26 p.m. EDT as hooks and latches in the station's docking mechanism disengaged.
Shuttle Endeavour undocks from the International Space Station
in orbital darkness. (Credit: NASA TV)
Joining Hurley aboard Endeavour were commander Mark Polansky, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata, who was replaced aboard the station by NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra.
Following a naval tradition adapted for space, station commander Gennady Padalka, a Russian cosmonaut, rang the ship's bell in the Harmony module as the two spacecraft slowly separated 218 miles above the central Indian Ocean in orbital darkness.
"Shuttle Endeavour, departing," Padalka said in English, ringing the bell. "ISS crew member Koichi Wakata, departing."
At a distance of about 400 feet, Hurley planned to begin a slow 360-degree fly-around, passing over the top of the station, then behind and below it while his crewmates photographed the outpost from all sides. A final rocket firing to leave the immediate vicinity was planned for 3:09 p.m.
A still photo of the space station from the shuttle Endeavour
after undocking Tuesday. (Credit: NASA TV)
Before launch, the astronauts planned to seal hatches between Endeavour and the station the day before undocking. But because the shuttle launch was delayed a full month, hatch closure and undocking were moved to the same day to get Endeavour out of the way before the arrival of a Russian Progress supply ship Wednesday.
With Endeavour safely on its way, Padalka, Kopra and their crewmates - flight engineer Michael Barratt, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk - will prepare for the Progress arrival at 7:16 a.m. Wednesday.
At about the same time, the shuttle astronauts will be carrying out a post-undocking heat shield inspection before packing up and readying Endeavour for return to Earth. Touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center is targeted for 10:48 a.m. Friday. Forecasters are predicting a slight chance of showers in the area at landing time.
11:25 AM, 7/28/09: Shuttle, station crews bid each other farewell
The seven-member crew of the shuttle Endeavour said farewell to their six space station hosts Tuesday, returning to the orbiter to prepare for undocking after a busy five-spacewalk construction mission.
Gathered together one last time in the station's Harmony module, shuttle commander Mark Polansky pretended to count his crewmates as they floated through a port leading to Endeavour amid a final round of hugs and handshakes.
The 13-member combined shuttle-station crew, gathered
together for the last time. (Photo: NASA TV)
Joining Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn for the trip home will be Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, launched to the station last March. He was replaced aboard the station by Timothy Kopra, who flew up on Endeavour.
"As representatives of the crew of Endeavour, we just wanted to go ahead and take this opportunity to extend our warmest thanks to Gennady (Padalka), the station commander, to all the crew members of the International Space Station that will be here after we depart," Polansky said.
"They've been tremendous hosts and we've really enjoyed our stay. We're sad to leave you, but hopefully happy we've left the station in pretty good shape. It was just a wonderful, wonderful experience to be part of the first crew of 13 people up here and to have representatives of all the international partners, which made it a very special event. So we wish you all a safe journey for what's left of your increments and good luck as we head back home. So thank you, Gennady."
Shuttle commander Mark Polansky, center, pretends to count
his crewmates as they return to Endeavour. (Photo: NASA TV)
Padalka returned the compliments, saying "we were very, very happy to help you, to support you and your Endeavour team mates, very great job."
"A special thanks to Koichi-san," Padalka said. "He's very dedicated and a very, very good flight engineer. As crew commander, I want to say we could rely on him in any situation. ... So guys, we'll be missing you, have a safe trip, we'll be looking forward to seeing you again on the ground, sooner or later."
The space station crew prepares to close hatches between
Endeavour and the lab complex. (Photo: NASA TV)
With that, the shuttle crew floated back to Endeavour, leaving Padalka, Kopra, Michael Barratt, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko behind.
Hatches between the two spacecraft were closed at 11:08 a.m. EDT. Undocking is expected around 1:26 p.m.
6:40 AM, 7/28/09: Astronauts ready shuttle for undocking
The Endeavour astronauts prepared the shuttle for undocking from the International Space Station Tuesday after five spacewalks to attach a new experiment platform, replace aging solar array batteries and to attach spare parts to the lab's main truss.
The space station's six-man crew will bid shuttle commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata farewell during a brief departure ceremony at 10:23 a.m. EDT.
Hatches between the two spacecraft will be closed a few minutes later and if all goes well, Endeavour will undock from the space station's forward port at 1:26 p.m.
Astronaut Timothy Kopra, who launched aboard Endeavour, will remain behind when the shuttle departs, replacing Japanese astronaut Wakata and joining Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka, flight engineer Michael Barratt, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk.
Kopra, in turn, will be replaced by NASA astronaut Nicole Stott when the shuttle Discovery arrives in late August carrying supplies and science equipment.
"I'll be the one at the controls of Endeavour (during undocking), so really looking forward to that," Hurley said in a NASA interview. "We'll back out to 450, 500, 600 feet as we work our profile and then we'll start 360-degree fly-around of ISS.
"Generally speaking, it's a chance to survey ISS and it's a chance to get photography of the current configuration. And then once we complete that 360, fuel allowing, of course, we'll start our series of separation burns to get away from ISS and begin our trip home."
Before launch, the astronauts planned to seal hatches between Endeavour and the station the day before undocking. But because the shuttle launch was delayed a full month, hatch closure and undocking were moved to the same day to get Endeavour out of the way before the arrival of a Russian Progress supply ship Wednesday.
As it now stands, the shuttle astronauts will carry out a post-undocking heat shield inspection Wednesday morning and spend the day Thursday packing up before landing Friday back at the Kennedy Space Center.
To ready a shuttle for undocking, "you have to do a series of leak checks, make sure everything is working right and then once you're depressurized the vestibule, then you can start the process of undoing the latches and undocking," Polansky said in a pre-launch NASA interview. "Traditionally, the pilot gets to fly, so Doug will be at the controls. I'm sure he's very excited about that.
"For me it's tremendously exciting because I will have seen three iterations of what a space station looks like and to see how much it changed from my first to my second mission and now from this one where all of the arrays will be out there when we show up and when we leave and all of these modules out there and we'll have left a piece behind that will be visible. Hopefully we'll get some really good high definition images with our camcorder."
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision O of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/28 03:03 AM...12...09...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 04:48 AM...12...10...45...ISS daily planning conference 04:48 AM...12...10...45...Leak checks 06:03 AM...12...12...00...EVA prep for transfer to shuttle 07:03 AM...12...13...00...Rendezvous tools checkout 07:33 AM...12...13...30...EVA transfer to shuttle 08:03 AM...12...14...00...PGSC transfer 09:23 AM...12...15...20...Crew meal 10:23 AM...12...16...20...Farewell ceremony 10:38 AM...12...16...35...Hatch closure 11:08 AM...12...16...57...Augustine committee hearing (media channel) 11:08 AM...12...17...05...Centerline camera install 11:53 AM...12...17...50...Group B computer powerup 12:08 PM...12...18...05...Maneuver to undocking attitude 12:14 PM...12...18...11...Sunrise 12:38 PM...12...18...35...ISS in undockling orientation 12:42 PM...12...18...39...Noon 01:08 PM...12...19...05...ISS: PMA-2 prepped for undocking 01:11 PM...12...19...08...Sunset 01:26 PM...12...19...23...UNDOCKING 01:27 PM...12...19...24...Initial separation 01:27 PM...12...19...24...ISS holds attitude 01:28 PM...12...19...25...ISS: PMA-2 depress 01:31 PM...12...19...28...Range: 50 feet; reselect -X jets 01:33 PM...12...19...30...Range 75 feet; low Z 01:45 PM...12...19...42...Sunrise 01:55 PM...12...19...52...Range: 400 feet; start fly around 02:04 PM...12...20...01...Range: 600 feet 02:06 PM...12...20...03...Shuttle directly above ISS 02:13 PM...12...20...10...Noon 02:18 PM...12...20...15...Shuttle directly behind ISS 02:29 PM...12...20...26...Shuttle directly below ISS 02:41 PM...12...20...38...Separation burn No. 1 02:41 PM...12...20...38...Sunset 03:09 PM...12...21...06...Separation burn No. 2 03:09 PM...12...21...06...Post-undocking PGSC reconfig 03:23 PM...12...21...20...Group B computer powerdown 04:03 PM...12...22...00...Video playback of undocking 04:13 PM...12...22...10...Evening planning conference 04:53 PM...12...22...50...Undocking video playback 06:00 PM...12...23...57...Mission status briefing 06:33 PM...13...00...30...ISS crew sleep begins 07:03 PM...13...01...00...STS crew sleep begins 08:00 PM...13...01...57...Daily highlights
07:30 PM, 7/27/09: Space station CO2 scrubber back in normal, automatic operation thanks to software patch
Flight controllers Monday uplinked a software patch to the International Space Station that successfully returned the lab's U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, to normal, automatic operation.
The CDRA shut down Saturday when a heater controller apparently malfunctioned, ultimately resulting in a blown circuit breaker. Environmental control and life support system engineers came up with a complex manual control procedure, bypassing on-board software that refused to start the CDRA due to the open circuit breaker.
Operating the CDRA in manual mode was difficult, however, requiring six additional flight controllers to monitor the complex device and send up the commands necessary to keep it running. The software patch uplinked today "masks" the open circuit breaker "bit" in the system initialization sequence and permits the hardware to operate in normal auto mode.
12:35 PM, 7/27/09: Spacewalk No. 5 ends (UPDATED at 4:40 p.m. with mission status briefing; explanation for skipped task)
Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy staged a 4-hour 54-minute spacewalk today, the fifth and final excursion planned for the shuttle Endeavour's space station assembly mission. The spacewalkers installed two Japanese television cameras on a new experiment platform, fixed an insulation problem on a Canadian robot and re-wired a gyro control circuit.
The International Space Station as seen from Endeavour.
(Photo: NASA TV)
They also completed a variety of minor "get-ahead" tasks after flight controllers decided there might not be enough carbon dioxide absorbent available in Cassidy's spacesuit to complete deployment of a cargo storage mechanism on the right side of the station's main truss. That task will be carried out by station astronauts or a future shuttle crew.
"Great job, outstanding EVA," Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide radioed from Houston after Marshburn and Cassidy floated back into the Quest airlock module. "We're all very happy to work with you, it's a privilege. Thanks and congratulations on five EVAs."
Said lead Flight Director Holly Ridings: "Today was a great day."
"With the completion of our fifth spacewalk, that really marks the end of an amazing list of objectives that have been successfully finished during this mission," she said.
Through five spacewalks, along with near daily work with three robot arms on the shuttle and the space station, the astronauts attached a sophisticated experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo lab module, installed three experiment packages, replaced aging solar array batteries and mounted critical spare parts on the station's main truss.
With today's installation of two television cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility experiment shelf, or porch, the astronauts completed the assembly and outfitting of the three components making up the Kibo lab complex.
"Congratulations, you guys just completed the JEF assembly," Hoshide called from mission control.
"Well, that is a big deal," David Wolf replied from the shuttle-station complex. "You guys have a fabulous space agency and it's an amazing laboratory, both internal and at vacuum. It's been a privilege to work with you to complete it."
The shuttle Endeavour, docked to the space station,
with the Gulf Coast 220 miles below. (Photo: NASA TV)
Commander Mark Polansky and his crewmates - pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, Wolf, Cassidy, Marshburn and returning space station flight engineer Koichi Wakata - plan to undock from the International Space Station on Tuesday and land back at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday to close out a marathon 16-day mission.
"We've had our challenges and as a team," Ridings said. "We've all worked together to overcome those challenges and complete what looks like a very, very nominal mission almost exactly like we planned it."
During his first spacewalk last week, Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, used up more CO2-absorbing lithium hydroxide than expected, forcing flight controllers to order an early end to the excursion. During his second spacewalk two days later, CO2 levels rose only slightly and he was able to complete a full-duration seven-hour 12-minute spacewalk.
But for today's EVA, Cassidy and Marshburn used a different type of CO-absorbent called METOX, a "rechargeable" compound that is slightly less effective than lithium hydroxide. An analysis of Cassidy's usage early in the spacewalk raised concern he might run into problems by the end of a full-duration EVA.
"Consumables, METOX for Tom is seven (hours) plus zero zero, METOX for Chris is five plus three zero. Those are non-conservative numbers," Hoshide radioed. "When we did the math on the ground, with the 15 minutes out for cleanup, we're past the bingo time for the PAS deploy. Just wondering what you guys think."
"We'll declare bingo. Simple," Wolf replied from orbit.
The payload attach system - PAS - mechanism on the starboard truss must be deployed before a November shuttle mission delivers spare parts and equipment that are scheduled to be stored at that location. It's not yet clear whether the crew of a late-August shuttle mission will inherit the deployment or whether the station crew will have to take it on.
"We had a lot of discussions before this EVA, we were very concerned with how much consumables we would have," lead spacewalk officer Kieth Johnson said later. "So we built a timeline with a full set of activities, hoping to get to those. But we knew if we went at the last task we had assigned without enough time we could get caught in the middle of it.
"And so at a certain point in the EVA, we had to make a decision as to whether or not we were going to do the payload attach system deploy. ... Unfortunately, because of the consumables, we had to back up our bingo time and we made the decision at that point not to go do the payload attach system."
Ridings said the decision might appear conservative to outsiders, but it was the right call given the past problems with Cassidy's suit, earlier trouble with similar attachment mechanisms and the arrival Wednesday of a Russian Progress supply ship.
"When you do the task, you're actually taking structural pieces of the truss apart," she said. "You've got to get the platform out and you've got to get it put back together. We've got a Progress coming less than 48 hours after the end of the EVA today and if you get yourself in a configuration where those beams are not structurally mated to the truss, then it's not a good idea to dock vehicles.
"When you think consumables, which we were tracking a little bit conservatively just based on our previous experience on this mission, plus the Progress in just a couple of days ... it made a lot more sense to be a little conservative. On paper, that task (PAS deploy) was going to take an hour and 30 minutes. The only two we've done, we've had trouble with both of them. ... We did the calculation, we had about an hour and 40 minutes. That was too close to go and do the activity."
Today's spacewalk began at 7:33 a.m. EDT and ended at 12:27 p.m. It was the 130th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the 11th so far this year and the fifth for Endeavour's crew. Total station spacewalk time now stands at 810 hours and 36 minutes, or 33.8 days. Endeavour's total through five spacewalks is 30 hours and 30 minutes.
11:00 AM, 7/27/09: Japanese television cameras installed; cargo mechanism deployment waved off; astronauts working on minor get-aheads before ending spacewalk
Running well ahead of schedule, spacewalkers Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy completed the installation of two critical TV cameras on a Japanese experiment platform to accomplish one of the primary objectives of today's excursion
But with less carbon dioxide absorbent available in Cassidy's suit than expected, flight controllers told them to forego deploying a payload attachment mechanism and to instead carry out a few minor get-ahead activities before returning to the space station's Quest airlock.
"Congratulations, you guys just completed the JEF assembly," astronaut Aki Hoshide called from mission control after the cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility were checked out.
"Well, that is a big deal," David Wolf replied from the shuttle-station complex. "You guys have a fabulous space agency and it's an amazing laboratory, both internal and at vacuum. It's been a privilege to work with you to complete it."
"I can verify from up close, it is indeed a beautiful laboratory," Marshburn agreed.
"Yes, it is," Cassidy said.
"Perhaps among the best (in) space," Wolf concluded.
"Thank you, guys, for getting the porch out," Hoshide said of the exposed facility. "On behalf of JAXA (the Japanese space agency) and the Japanese community, I'd like to thank you guys."
Cassidy and Marshburn already had completed an insulation fix on Canada's DEXTRE construction robot and a re-wiring job on the Z1 truss to put two stabilizing gyroscopes on separate circuits.
They were more than an hour ahead of schedule on their spacewalk timeline when the astronauts and flight controllers agreed to forego the planned deployment of a payload attachment system mechanism on the right side of the station's main power truss.
For today's spacewalk, the astronauts were using a rechargeable chemical known as METOX to scrub carbon dioxide from their air supplies.
"Consumables, METOX for Tom is seven (hours) plus zero zero, METOX for Chris is five plus three zero. Those are non-conservative numbers," Hoshide radioed. "When we did the math on the ground, with the 15 minutes out for cleanup, we're past the bingo time for the PAS deploy. Just wondering what you guys think."
"We'll declare bingo. Simple," Wolf said.
The PAS mechanism must be deployed before a November shuttle mission delivers spare parts and equipment that must be stored at that location. It's not yet clear whether the crew of a late-August shuttle mission will inherit the deployment or whether the station crew will have to take it on.
9:00 AM, 7/27/09: SPDM insulation fix, Z1 re-wiring complete
Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy have completed the first two items on today's spacewalk agenda, adjusting the insulation on a Canadian construction robot and re-wiring a patch panel to put two gyroscopes on separate circuits. The astronauts now are working to install two Japanese cameras on the new experiment platform attached to the Kibo lab module.
Marshburn works on the imposing DEXTRE robot. (Photo: NASA TV)
Cassidy inspects Z1 patch panel wiring. (Photo: NASA TV)
Marshburn at work on the Japanese Exposed Facility. (Photo: NASA TV)
The shuttle-station complex above the toe of Italy. (Photo: NASA TV)
07:40 AM, 7/27/09: Spacewalk No. 5 begins
Running nearly an hour ahead of schedule, astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy switched their spacesuits to internal battery power at 7:33 a.m. EDT to officially kick off a planned six-and a half-hour spacewalk. They floated out of the Quest airlock a few minutes later.
It will take the astronauts about 45 to set up tools and tethers and make their way to their initial work sites. Cassidy will move to the space station's Z1 truss to make a gyroscope control circuit wiring change while Marshburn makes adjustments to the insulation on a Canadian construction robot.
Thomas Marshburn exits the Quest airlock module. (Photo: NASA TV)
06:40 AM, 7/27/09: Marshburn, Cassidy suit up for fifth and final spacewalk
Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy are suiting up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk today to install two Japanese television cameras, to deploy a payload attachment mechanism, to fix the insulation on a Canadian robot and to re-wire two of the station's stabilizing gyroscopes.
This will be the 130th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the 11th so far this year and the fifth for Endeavour's crew. Going into today's EVA, total station spacewalk time stood at 805 hours and 42 minutes, or 33.6 days. Endeavour's total through four spacewalks was 25 hours and 36 minutes.
For identification, Marshburn, call sign EV-1, will be wearing a spacesuit with broken stripes around the legs. Cassidy, EV-2, will be wearing a suit with diagonal stripes.
The spacewalk was scheduled to begin around 8:28 a.m. EDT. The astronauts will split up after leaving the Quest airlock module, with Cassidy heading to an electrical distribution patch panel on the Z1 truss atop the central Unity module and Marshburn heading for Canada's Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, a robotic "hand" designed for the space station's robotic arm.
"Basically what we're going to do (at the Z1 truss) is redistribute which power channels our four control moment gyros are fed from," said Flight Director Brian Smith. "Currently, two of those control moment gyros are fed off the same power channel. So if we were to have a failure on that power channel, we would lose both of those CMGs and that would put us in a very degraded and precarious position as far as non-propulsive attitude control of the space station. So we'll alleviate that risk by redistributing the power."
While Cassidy works at the Z1 patch panel, Marshburn will spend a moment adjusting the insulation on the Canadian SPDM robot, also known as DEXTRE.
"There's some MLI (multi-layer insulation) that's not seated quite right and we want to make sure that that's properly laid down and in place," Smith said. "There's going to be some commissioning activities with DEXTRE later on this fall and we'd like that MLI in the proper configuration for that. That'll be a very brief task, there's not much to it."
Now an hour and a half into the spacewalk, Cassidy and Marshburn will make their way to the Japanese Exposed Facility, a porch-like experiment platform attached to the Kibo laboratory module earlier in the mission to install two television cameras. The cameras are need the upcoming docking of a Japanese cargo craft in September and for normal experiment work on the JEF.
"These are television cameras that will be installed on the porch," Smith said. "They flew up in a launch configuration on the porch and the crew's going to go down, take them out of the launch configuration and put them in their permanent operational position. These should have been done on earlier EVAs but we'll pick them up now on this EVA.
"And then the last task in the timeline is deploying a payload attach system. This is a mechanism on the outside of the space station that you can attach carriers and other structures to. This one is located on the S3 (starboard-3) integrated truss segment. There are four of these attach mechanisms on S3 and currently, none of them are deployed. This will be the first one.
"It's located on S3 upper and outboard," Smith said. "This site is needed for STS-129, ULF-3, we'll be positioning an external logistics carrier, or ELC, onto that. That ELC will be loaded with critical spare ORUs for the space station."
Shuttle mission STS-129, scheduled for launch in November, will carry two ELCs into orbit, both loaded with critical spares to protect against failures after the shuttle program comes to an end next year.
ELC-1, which will be mounted on the left-side port-3 truss segment, will carry a solar array battery charge/discharge unit, a plasma contactor unit, a robot arm latching end effector, a control moment gyroscope, a nitrogen tank assembly, an ammonia tank assembly and a cooling system pump module.
ELC-2, which will be mounted on the starboard-3 truss attach mechanism being deployed today, will carry a high pressure gas tank, another control moment gyroscope, a pump module, a robot arm transporter umbilical system, experiment support equipment and flight attachment mechanisms.
If all goes well, today's spacewalk will end around 3 p.m. The Endeavour crew plans to undock from the space station Tuesday and to land Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision N of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/27 03:33 AM...11...09...30...STS/ISS crew wakeup 04:13 AM...11...10...10...EVA-5: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 04:58 AM...11...10...55...EVA-5: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 05:23 AM...11...11...20...EVA-5: Campout EVA preps 05:33 AM...11...11...30...ISS daily planning conference 06:53 AM...11...12...50...EVA-5: Spacesuit purge 07:08 AM...11...13...05...EVA-5: Spacesuit prebreathe 07:58 AM...11...13...55...EVA-5: Crew lock depressurization 08:28 AM...11...14...25...EVA-5: Spacesuits to battery power 08:33 AM...11...14...30...EVA-5: Airlock egress 08:43 AM...11...14...40...EVA-5: Setup 09:13 AM...11...15...10...EVA-5: EV1: Z1 patch panel 09:13 AM...11...15...10...EVA-5: EV2: SPDM covers 10:13 AM...11...16...10...EVA-5: Forward VE camera 11:43 AM...11...17...40...EVA-5: Aft VE camera/LTA reconfig 12:58 PM...11...18...55...EVA-5: S3 zenith outboard PAS 01:53 PM...11...19...50...EVA-5: STP 02:08 PM...11...20...05...EVA-5: Cleanup and ingress 02:58 PM...11...20...55...EVA-5: Airlock repressurization 03:08 PM...11...21...05...Spacesuit servicing 04:03 PM...11...22...00...Evening planning conference 06:00 PM...11...23...57...Mission status briefing 06:33 PM...12...00...30...ISS crew sleep begins 07:03 PM...12...01...00...STS crew sleep begins 08:00 PM...12...01...57...Daily highlights
4:00 PM, 7/26/09: Shuttle commander pleased with progress of 'extremely successful' mission
Despite initial problems that forced spacewalk replanning, an impromptu toilet repair and work to restore the space station's carbon dioxide scrubber to normal operation, the commander of the shuttle Endeavour said Sunday the ongoing station assembly mission is going well and that most major objectives have been accomplished.
During four earlier spacewalks and near daily coordinated use of three robot arms on the shuttle and the space station, the astronauts attached a large experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo lab module, installed research instruments, replaced aging solar array batteries and deployed a jammed spare parts attachment mechanism.
The combined 13-member shuttle-station crew waves to reporters
after an orbital news conference Sunday. (Photo: NASA TV)
"We even managed to have dinner a couple of nights with our wonderful hosts here," Endeavour skipper Mark Polansky told reporters Sunday during an in-flight news conference. "So all in all, I think it's an extremely successful mission in spite of a lot of really interesting curve balls that have been thrown our way."
One final spacewalk by astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn is planned for Monday to re-wire a gyroscope control circuit, repair insulation on a Canadian construction robot, to install two Japanese television cameras and to deploy another spare parts stowage mechanism.
"I have all the confidence in the world in the EVA team and all the folks back in Houston and everywhere else who have planned what we're going to do tomorrow," Polansky said. "But I think we're all keenly aware that EVAs carry some risk to them and so we're going to be very, very deliberate and careful about the last EVA. Because in my book, the last one you do is always the one you have to watch out for the most. So EVA-5 should be our final one and we're hoping it's going to go real well."
The six members of the lab's Expedition 20 crew, along with Polansky and his six shuttle crewmates, gathered in the station's Harmony module for the news conference, floating shoulder to shoulder in the normally roomy confines.
The shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Shuttle spacewalker David Wolf, veteran of a long-duration stay aboard the old Russian Mir space station, said life aboard the International Space Station symbolizes the world-wide effort that's gone into building history's largest spacecraft.
"It's really fascinating to be here," he said. "I'm looking down a corridor, maybe 60, 80 feet, through several modules into a Russian segment. To my left is a European segment, to my right is a Japanese segment, a U.S. space shuttle behind me. And as you go through here, you hear different languages, you hear different music, it's like going around the world within the spacecraft as it goes around.
"The equipment is made out of different materials, there's kind of different odors and feelings as you go around," he said. "We've put together a vehicle that is truly international and brought together a truly international crew representing the whole world. We're undertaking, perhaps, one of the most spectacular engineering achievements that humans have ever conducted. And so it's just fabulous in many dimensions."
Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, a member of the ISS-20 crew, said living aboard the station provides a unique vantage point, one that he said clearly shows the impact of ongoing environmental damage.
"It's still a strikingly beautiful view, we never have enough time at the window just to pause and reflect on our beautiful planet," he said. "I am impressed by the thinness of the atmosphere, it's a very thin veil of atmosphere around the Earth that keeps us alive. That impression is still there.
"I've also had opportunities to pass over British Columbia, one of my favorite viewpoints from the station, and it's probably just a perception but I just have the feeling that the glaciers are melting, the snow capping the mountains is less than it was 12 years ago when I flew (in space) last time. It's probably just a perception, but that saddens me a little bit. Most of the time when I look out the window I'm in awe. But there are some effects of the human destruction of the Earth as well."
07:45 AM, 7/26/09: CO2 scrubber back on line in manual mode; shuttle Discovery moved to VAB; crew news conference on tap (UPDATED at 12:50 p.m. with mission status briefing)
Worried the shuttle Endeavour might have to undock early because of a carbon dioxide removal problem aboard the International Space Station, engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston came up with a manual control work-around that successfully restored the CO2 removal system to near-normal operation.
The solution requires flight controllers to uplink complex command sequences to control the carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, work normally carried out by on-board software, because of a heater control problem that cropped up Saturday and resulted in a blown circuit breaker.
With six full-time station astronauts and seven shuttle crew members on board the shuttle-station complex, carbon dioxide removal is a critical requirement. Without the CDRA, the Russian Vozdukh CO2 removal system and the CO2-scrubbing lithium hydroxide canisters aboard Endeavour cannot handle the load for more than a few days.
"For six crew, we rely on Vozdukh and CDRA working together," said Brian Smith, a space station flight director. "The shuttle uses lithium hydroxide canisters, LIOH. Vozdukh and shuttle LIOH alone wouldn't be able to sustain 13 people for that long of a time. with CDRA down, we could go a few more days by using extra lithium hydroxide canisters. In addition to Vozdukh, we can use Russian canisters, extra shuttle ones and we also maintain a stockpile on the ISS."
"But managinghe managing of those canisters is a little tricky, you have to factor in a lot of things," he said. "We looked at those numbers and we had a few plans put in place should we need them."
But engineers in Houston, led by environmental control and life support systems officer John Garr, came up with a work-around that allowed flight controllers to restart the CDRA Saturday evening.
"We saw higher temperatures than we typically see on the carbon dioxide removal assembly, which is located in the International Space Station laboratory module," space station Flight Director Derek Hassmann said early Sunday.
"We reacted to that by turning off heaters in that system. We didn't see the temperature decrease that we expected, so initially we thought that the heater was failed on, or stuck on, for some reason. As we were looking at that, we had one of the circuit breakers in the power system trip, which removed power from the system.
"So we went back and looked at the data and we think the problem lies somewhere in the heater controller assembly that actually tells the heater when to cycle on and off based on temperature data from the carbon dioxide removal assembly," he said. "And based on that assessment, we put together a procedure that basically allowed the ground to control the system in the way the software normally does."
"Normally, the carbon dioxide removal system operates completely on its own, scrubbing carbon dioxide from the air and then dumping that carbon dioxide overboard, and it's run by the software in the space station computers. But without that heater controller, and with that circuit breaker failed open, the system will no longer operate in that autonomous, or stand-alone, mode.
"So what we've done is, we built a set of commands and we put together a procedure that allows the folks on the ground in the control center to move the valves and command the system in the way the software normally does. It's not something that we want to do long term, for weeks for example, because (of) the number of commands we have to send from the ground. But in the short term, we've got the carbon dioxide removal system back up and running and operating at close to its normal capacity."
After Endeavour undocks Tuesday, the space station crew may be asked to replace the presumably faulty controller to restore CDRA to normal operation. A new Air Revitalization System, or ARS, is being launched on the next shuttle mission in late August. It eventually will be installed in node 3, a module scheduled for launch in February, to supplement the station's air processing systems.
"Bottom line, we're operating it manually with commands from the ground and we're scrubbing CO2 at a level we're happy with," Hassmann said. "After the shuttle leaves, we're going to talk about actually removing and replacing that heater controller."
At the Kennedy Space Center, meanwhile, the shuttle Discovery was hauled from its processing hangar at 7:22 a.m. EDT Sunday for the short trip to the Vehicle Assembly Building where it will be attached to an external tank and a set of solid-fuel rocket boosters. Rollout to launch pad 39A is targeted for Aug. 5, setting the stage for launch August 25.
NASA originally planned to to launch Discovery around Aug. 18, but conflict with a Delta rocket launch pushed the shuttle flight to Aug. 21 and then work to test the orbiter's external tank foam insulation triggered an additional delay.
During Endeavour's launch, an unusual amount of foam insulation fell away from external tank No. 131's central intertank section. To assess the condition of ET-132, the tank reserved for Discovery, engineers carried out two rounds of so-called plug-pull tests, drilling small cores in the intertank foam and then pulling on the insulation to make sure it was firmly bonded to the underlying structure.
Some 150 plug-pull tests were carried out and the foam behaved as expected. Analysis and repair of the foam cores is ongoing, but NASA managers felt confident enough about the health of the insulation to proceed with Discovery's roll over to the VAB.
Shuttle program managers plan to review Discovery's flight readiness Aug. 11 and 12, followed by an executive-level flight readiness review Aug. 18.
Aboard the space station Sunday, the astronauts used the station and shuttle robot arms to remove a Japanese payload carrier pallet from the Kibo module's new external experiment platform and to stow it back in Endeavour's cargo bay for return to Earth.
The combined 13-member crew will hold a traditional joint crew news conference at 2:28 p.m. to discuss the progress of the mission before reviewing the timeline and procedures for a fifth and final spacewalk Monday.
Astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn face a full plate for their final excursion. repairing insulation on the Canadian DEXTRE construction robot, rewiring a gyroscope control circuit, installing two television cameras on the Japanese experiment platform and deploying a spare parts attachment mechanism on the station's main power truss.
Cassidy and Marshburn plan to spend the night in the Quest airlock at a reduced pressure of 10.2 pounds per square inch to help purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams in preparation for working in NASA's 5-psi spacesuits.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule; SRMS: shuttle robot arm; SSRMS: station robot arm; JLE: Japanese experiment pallet):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/26 04:03 AM...10...10...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 05:13 AM...10...11...10...ISS PAO event 06:03 AM...10...12...00...ISS daily planning conference 07:08 AM...10...13...05...SSRMS JLE grapple 07:08 AM...10...13...05...EVA-5: Tools configured 07:48 AM...10...13...45...JLE uninstall 08:18 AM...10...14...15...SRMS grapples JLE 08:38 AM...10...14...35...SSRMS releases JLE 08:38 AM...10...14...35...EVA-5: Spacesuit swap 08:58 AM...10...14...55...SRMS berths JLE 09:28 AM...10...15...25...EVA-5: Equipment lock preps 10:38 AM...10...16...35...Crew meals begin 11:00 AM...10...16...57...Mission status briefing 12:38 PM...10...18...35...EVA-5: Conference 02:28 PM...10...20...25...Joint crew news conference 03:08 PM...10...21...05...Crew photo 03:28 PM...10...21...25...EVA-5: Procedures review 04:43 PM...10...22...40...ISS evening planning conference 05:58 PM...10...23...55...EVA-5: Mask pre-breathe 06:38 PM...11...00...35...EVA-5: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 07:03 PM...11...01...00...ISS crew sleep begins 07:33 PM...11...01...30...STS crew sleep begins 08:00 PM...11...01...57...Daily highlights
2:20 PM, 7/25/09: Circuit breaker trip takes down CO2 scrubber on station; no immediate impact
Space station engineers are looking into a circuit breaker trip that took the U.S. carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, off line this afternoon. There is no immediate impact, officials say, while engineers try to determine what caused the breaker to pop and return the CDRA to normal operation.
Flight controllers asked the station crew to verify no smoke or fire in the area when the remote power controller, or RPC, circuit breaker tripped, and station flight engineer Mike Barratt promptly reported there were no obvious signs of trouble.
"Just to give you an idea about what's been going on, our telemetry showed that we may have had a stuck-on heater for CDRA bed two, which is potentially a cause for that RPC trip," Mark van de Hei radioed from mission control.
"OK, understand," Barratt replied. "Just to report, consider this a very soft reporting, but in the lab on deck six, the aft half on the starboard side, is a little bit warmer than usual. Again, there is absolutely no burning odor or anything like that, but just under the medical equipment computer there on the starboard side in the aft it is a little noticeably warmer than usual. That may just be because of its operations recently."
The space station is equipped with two CO2 removal systems, one in the Russian segment of the complex and the CDRA in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module. The station also carries a supply of U.S. and Russian backup chemical canisters that also can scrub CO2 from the air supply.
The space station currently is hosting a combined crew of 13 - six full-time station astronauts and the shuttle Endevour's seven-member crew - but it's not known if the additional load played any role in today's incident.
9:15 AM, 7/25/09: Astronauts enjoy day off; CBS News interview
The combined 13-member crew of the shuttle-station complex enjoyed a day off Saturday, taking a break after a grueling week and a half of work that included four spacewalks, internal and external equipment transfers and the precisely coordinated use of three robotic arms.
Canadian astronaut Julie Payette answers questions during
media interviews Saturday. (Photo: NASA TV)
In an interview with CBS News, shuttle skipper Mark Polansky took a moment to defend the space station project, saying the outpost is just now beginning to reach its full potential.
"It does two things in my opinion," he said. "Number one, of course, it has the ability to do a lot of research. And I'll grant you that maybe we have not gotten to the point where we've done the amount of research that we'd hoped to. But we're getting there. We now have most of the station complete, we have a lot of world-class facilities, we have a crew of six for the first time permanently up here and I think we're entering that era where we will get that sort of payback from it.
"The other thing, which maybe is an intangible but I think is really important, is if you look at the crew right now, you have 13 crew members up here and you have every single major international partner of space station represented. That means it is truly an international space station.
"If you think about what it takes to get all of these countries, including Russia, the United States, Japan, all the European countries, Canada, everybody that's participated, to get them actually working together on a project that occurs 200 miles up and out of the atmosphere, I think that's a pretty amazing accomplishment and bodes well about international cooperation."
The astronauts enjoyed a full day off Saturday, taking time out to enjoy the view from 220 miles up and the experience of weightlessness.
"I think it is a complete privilege to be up here and to be able to see the Earth from above, to float in weightlessness," said Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. "Anybody who would come here would be absolutely awed at the incredible feat that it was to put it together and how fun it is to zoom from one module to the other."
In October, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte will spend nine days aboard the space station as a tourist. Asked if she had any advice, Payette said "at first we're not very good (at moving around), so I'm thinking someone who has circus experience might be a little better a little earlier. But even then, it takes some getting used to. It is different than on good old planet Earth."
On Sunday, the astronauts will use the station and shuttle robot arms to return a Japanese experiment carrier to Endeavour's cargo bay for return to Earth and hold a traditional joint news conference to discuss the progress of the mission.
Sunday evening, astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn will spend the night in the space station's Quest airlock module at a reduced pressure of 10.2 psi to purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams in preparation for a fifth and final spacewalk Monday.
The goals of the excursion include a wiring modification to put two stabilizing gyroscopes on separate circuits; a minor insulation fix on Canada's DEXTRE construction robot; installation of two television cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility; and deployment of a spare parts stowage mechanism on the station's main power truss.
During his first spacewalk last Wednesday, Cassidy's suit had problems removing carbon dioxide, forcing flight controllers to bring the EVA to an early end as a safety precaution. A very slight buildup was noted during a second full-duration spacewalk Friday and Cassidy said today he does not anticipate any problems during his final outing Monday.
"That system didn't work quite as we expected on EVA-3, and yesterday during EVA-4 we got the full capacity out of the suit with a seven-hour EVA and accomplishing all of our tasks," he said. "What I learned in my two EVA experiences is just go slow early, slow and steady wins the race, and that's all we're going to do on EVA-5, just go nice and slow and work methodically and accomplish the tasks that we're able to accomplish."
If all goes well, Endeavour will undock from the station Tuesday, making way for the arrival of a Russian Progress supply ship Wednesday morning. Endeavour is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center Friday.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/25 04:33 AM...09...10...30...Crew wakeup 08:03 AM...09...14...00...PAO event (all) 08:23 AM...09...14...20...Crew off duty 11:00 AM...09...16...57...Mission status briefing 11:03 AM...09...17...00...ISS crew meal 12:03 PM...09...18...00...STS crew meal 01:03 PM...09...19...00...Crew off duty 05:03 PM...09...23...00...Crew choice downlink 05:18 PM...09...23...15...ISS daily planning conference 07:33 PM...10...01...30...ISS crew sleep begins 08:03 PM...10...02...00...STS crew sleep begins 09:00 PM...10...02...57...Daily highlights 11:00 PM...10...04...57...HD highights
5:15 PM, 7/24/09: Solar array batteries successfully replaced (UPDATED at 8 p.m. with mission status briefing)
Astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn successfully installed four new batteries in the International Space Station's oldest set of solar arrays today, completing a high-priority job that was interrupted Wednesday by elevated carbon dioxide levels in Cassidy's spacesuit.
Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn, working at the far left end
of the space station's solar power truss, replaced a final four batteries
to accomplish a major mission objective. (Photo: NASA TV)
Cassidy and David Wolf intended to install four of six batteries Wednesday, but only two were in place when the spacewalk was brought to an early end. Today, Cassidy and Marshburn installed the final four. The six old batteries were bolted to a cargo carrier that will be returned to Earth in the shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay.
"You guys, from Houston, great job today," astronaut Aki Hoshide radioed from mission control. "All six batteries in and congratulations for your second EVA, both of you. Great job. And your families are watching."
"Thanks, Aki," the spacewalkers replied.
Today's spacewalk began at 9:54 a.m. EDT and ended at 5:06 p.m. It was the 129th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began, the 10th so far this year and the fourth of five planned by Endeavour's crew.
Total station EVA time now stands at 805 hours and 42 minutes. The Endeavour astronauts have now logged 25 hours and 36 minutes through four spacewalks. A fifth and final excursion is planned for Monday.
There were no problems of any significance today. The astronauts fell behind schedule at one point when they had problems bolting one of the old batteries in place, but they later made up lost time and remained pretty much on or ahead of schedule. Flight controllers told Cassidy to take it easy when his CO2 concentration climbed ever so slightly, but there were no significant issues.
"Very exciting to complete the objective of changing out those batteries and placing the carrier back in the payload bay," said Holly Ridings, the lead space station flight director. "We got some data and temperature status from all six new batteries on the integrated equipment assembly of the P6 truss.
"We're in the process of warming up those batteries with heaters into their operational temperature range. That will be followed by charging those batteries for use. By tomorrow afternoon, we hope to have those three battery sets, six batteries in all, back on line and working for us again as an integrated part of the power system on the space station.
"It was a great day," she concluded. "All of the crew did just a wonderful job today and we declared success with that part of the mission. We're all very, very pleased."
The combined 13-member crew of the shuttle-space station complex will enjoy an off-duty day Saturday to relax and catch their collective breath after a challenging 10 days in space. CBS News and two other news organizations will interview the shuttle crew at 8:03 a.m. Saturday.
"Tomorrow is a full day off for the crew," Ridings said. "In a very long mission like this, it's really important that they get some time to recuperate and recover and really just to enjoy being on orbit as a 13-person crew. So we're really excited that they have that opportunity."
A fifth and final spacewalk is planned for Monday. The objectives include a wiring modification to put two stabilizing gyroscopes on separate circuits; a minor insulation reconfiguration on Canada's DEXTRE construction robot; installation of two television cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility; and deployment of a spare parts stowage mechanism on the station's main power truss.
"We plan optimistically and we build a time line, more or less, based on the priorities, but we also look at how close different tasks are and whether we want the crew to be together at certain points," said lead spacewalk officer Kieth Johnson. "If any of the tasks take longer than expected, then a task drops off the back."
9:55 AM, 7/24/09: Spacewalk No. 4 begins
Astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn switched their spacesuits to battery power at 9:54 a.m. EDT to officially begin a planned seven-and-a-half hour spacewalk to replace four battery packs in the space station's oldest set of solar arrays.
It will take the astronauts about a half hour to set up tools and tethers and make their way to the far left end of the station's solar power truss where the outboard port-6, or P6, array is located. If one visualizes the Quest airlock module on the right side of a football field's 50-yard line, the P6 array would be deep in the left endzone.
Dimensions of the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)
08:40 AM, 7/24/09: Astronauts suit up for extended spacewalk
Astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn are suiting up for a grueling seven-and-a-half-hour spacewalk today to replace a final four batteries in the International Space Station's oldest set of solar arrays, a critical task that was interrupted during a spacewalk Wednesday because of elevated carbon dioxide levels in Cassidy's spacesuit.
Spacewalk No. 4 is scheduled to begin at 9:58 a.m. EDT Friday, but it could begin a bit earlier depending on how preparations go. It will be the 129th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began, the 10th so far this year and the fourth of five planned by Endeavour's crew.
Spacewalks are normally scheduled for no more than six-and-a-half hours, but today's excursion was extended to give the astronauts time to complete the battery swap out.
Cassidy and David Wolf attempted to replace four of the six batteries during a spacewalk Wednesday, but the excursion was cut short after just two batteries were installed when engineers noticed rising CO2 levels in Cassidy's suit. He never experienced any symptoms of hypercapnia, which include headaches, confusion and lethargy, and he said Thursday he was surprised when the spacewalk was cut short.
"They're getting telemetry from each of our suits," Cassidy said. "They're able to detect any problems long before we inside would have any idea. In fact, it was a total surprise to me that the CO2 was climbing high, and we aborted at conservative numbers, so I felt no symptoms and really was not that concerned. I was confident they had my safety in mind."
Space station Flight Director Holly Ridings said Thursday engineers believe the problem was triggered when Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, got off to a fast start in his first spacewalk, overtaxing the lithium hydroxide, or LIOH, that is used to scrub carbon dioxide from his air supply.
"There is a feature of the way LIOH works where if you go out and you have a very high metabolic rate at the very beginning, then the canister doesn't work as well for the duration," she said. "It's kind of got a metabolic rate that it's expecting.
"So we talked to the crew and we explained ... to them that it's important that they don't go out really excited and really fast like you normally would on your first spacewalk. They understand they need to take it slow at the beginning and let the LIOH can do its thing and then it will work efficiently for the duration."
Asked if the crew was told to do anything different procedurally, Ridings laughed and said "Chris is a very motivated, very intelligent guy and he was excited about his first spacewalk. And he went all the way from the airlock ... out to the end very, very quickly. He's a Navy SEAL, he's in great shape and so we really just needed to tell him hey, we know you can do this really well and really fast, but we need the LIOH to work right for us. He took that with good humor."
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule; SRMS: shuttle robot arm; SSRMS: station robot arm; ICC: integrated cargo carrier):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/24 05:03 AM...08...11...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 05:43 AM...08...11...40...EVA-4: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 06:28 AM...08...12...25...EVA-4: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 06:48 AM...08...12...45...ISS daily planning conference 06:53 AM...08...12...50...EVA-4: Campout EVA preps 08:23 AM...08...14...20...EVA-4: Spacesuit purge 08:38 AM...08...14...35...EVA-4: Spacesuit prebreathe 09:28 AM...08...15...25...EVA-4: Crew lock depressurization 09:33 AM...08...15...30...SSRMS ICC maneuver to EVA work site 09:58 AM...08...15...55...EVA-4: Spacesuits to battery power 10:03 AM...08...16...00...EVA-4: Airlock egress 10:13 AM...08...16...10...EVA-4: Setup 10:33 AM...08...16...30...EVA-4: P6 battery replacement (4) 04:28 PM...08...22...25...SSRMS ICC maneuver to handoff 04:28 PM...08...22...25...EVA-4: Cleanup and ingress 04:43 PM...08...22...40...SRMS grapples ICC 05:03 PM...08...23...00...SSRMS releases ICC 05:23 PM...08...23...20...SRMS ICC berth 05:28 PM...08...23...25...EVA-4: Airlock repressurization 05:28 PM...08...23...25...Evening planning conference 05:38 PM...08...23...35...Spacesuit servicing 07:00 PM...09...00...57...Mission status briefing 08:03 PM...09...02...00...ISS crew sleep begins 08:33 PM...09...02...30...STS crew sleep begins 09:00 PM...09...02...57...Daily highlights reel
07:15 PM, 7/23/09: Engineers monitor fuel cell heater problem (UPDATED at 8:40 p.m. with mission status briefing)
Astronauts operating a Japanese robot arm from inside the space station's Kibo laboratory module Thursday successfully transferred three compact experiments from a shuttle pallet to a newly installed porch-like platform in a major milestone for Japan's space program.
It was the first operational use of the new robot arm and the successful experiment transfer, along with the attachment of the porch earlier in the mission, accomplished one of the mission's top priorities.
"It's emotional enough for its designers and developers to see it accommodating external users," Tetsuro Yokoyama, deputy manager of the Kibo program, said of the robot arm work. "This also gives to Japanese public an impression that Japan's human spaceflight program is getting to a new horizon of meaningful operation and utilization."
Said lead flight director Holly Ridings: "We're very, very pleased for our colleagues" at the Japanese space agency.
While the experiment transfers were going on, flight planners were revising plans for the crew's final two spacewalks. Spacewalk No. 4, scheduled to begin at 9:58 a.m. EDT Friday, will be devoted to completing the installation of new batteries in the station's oldest set of solar arrays, work expected to take seven-and-a-half hours to complete.
Astronauts David Wolf and Christopher Cassidy attempted to replace four of the six batteries during a spacewalk Wednesday, but the excursion was cut short after just two batteries were installed because of a carbon dioxide issue with Cassidy's spacesuit.
Ridings said Thursday engineers believe the problem was triggered when Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, got off to a fast start in his first spacewalk, overtaxing the carbon dioxide removal system.
For Friday's spacewalk, Cassidy and crewmate Thomas Marshburn were told to take their time in the initial stages of the outing to make sure the CO2-absorbing lithium hydroxide in their suits does not get over-stressed early.
Assuming all four remaining batteries are installed Friday, Ridings said, Cassidy and Marshburn likely will focus on installing two Japanese television cameras during the mission's fifth and final spacewalk Monday, along with deploying a payload mounting mechanism.
Engineers, meanwhile, are monitoring a possible problem with a "sustaining heater" used to keep one of Endeavour's electricity producing fuel cells from getting too cold. While docked to the space station, Endeavour draws most of its power from the space station's solar arrays and the shuttle's fuel cells are operated at a low-power setting.
To keep the fuel cells from getting too cold, the sustaining heater occasionally kicks in. But fuel cell No. 3's heater ran longer than expected earlier today and engineers decided to change the shuttle's power generation configuration to prevent additional problems.
"Julie, we are seeing a longer than expected cycle on the sustaining heater on fuel cell 3," mission control radioed Endeavour. "We want to load up fuel cell 3 so it will stay warm while we look at the problem. So we'd like on (cockpit panel) R-1 is the Charlie (electrical bus) tie to off, O-F-F."
"Charlie tie to off, O-F-F," Julie Payette confirmed from the shuttle.
"Good copy."
As a result of the switch throw, fuel cell No. 3 was taken out of the shared bus configuration and as a result will generate more power, keeping itself warm without having to utilize the sustaining heater. On the flip side, the powerplant will use more hydrogen and oxygen than originally planned. But as of this writing, engineers believe the power setting will permit a full-duration mission as planned.
"Fuel cell 3, we really weren't using it, it didn't have much load on it," Ridings said. "It has a sustaining heater that when it's not loaded, comes on to keep the fuel cell warm. That heater came on and it stayed on longer than expected. They're not sure why it stayed on that long, but they decided we would start using the fuel cell and put normal loads on it to warm it up above the level where the heater needs to run.
"And so the fuel cell is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, just the heater staying on longer than expected. ... It stayed on about 20 minutes, you would expect more like two or three. We put load on it so it would stay in a warm region above where that heater's required while they go off and see if the heater signature will make some sense for them."
The heater problem is not related to a subtle issue experienced by fuel cell No. 3 before launch. But in its current configuration, a problem with one of the shuttle's other two fuel cells, in combination with a "failed on" fuel cell No. 3 heater, could result in a shortened mission.
As it now stands, no such issues are expected.
6:00 PM, 7/23/09: Cain says 125 additional foam tests planned for next external tank; launch date expected to slip to around Aug. 25 or 26 if no additional problems are found
NASA managers decided Thursday to order another 125 foam "plug-pull" tests on the external tank scheduled for use by the shuttle Discovery next month to make sure there are no adhesion problems like those that resulted in unusual foam shedding during Endeavour's takeoff last week.
The additional work will delay Discovery's rollover from the processing hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, where external tank No. 132 and a set of solid-fuel boosters are waiting, and will delay launch by several days at least.
"We're going to have to re-evaluate the launch date," LeRoy Cain, deputy manager of the space shuttle program, told CBS News in an interview Thursday. "We had been kind of targeting (Aug.) 21st and ... with this work we're adding in, it's unlikely we can make the 21st. I don't have a new target date for you yet but it'll be probably the 25th or 26th, somewhere in that ball part."
Engineers testing foam insulation on ET-132. (Photo: NASA TV)
During Endeavour's launching July 15, an unusual amount of foam insulation pulled away from the external tank's central "intertank" region, a structurally rigid part of the tank that is not exposed to the sort of ultra-low cryogenic temperatures experienced by the hydrogen and oxygen sections.
Most of the debris fell off after the shuttle was out of the dense lower atmosphere when impacts pose the greatest threat to the shuttle's heat shield. But several tiles were dinged and while Endeavour has been cleared for entry as is, NASA managers want to understand the mechanism and make sure whatever caused the shedding can't happen earlier.
Earlier this week, engineers carried out 26 so-called "plug-pull" tests, drilling small cores in the foam of the intertank and pulling them to determine how firmly the insulation was bonded with the underlying structure. In all 26 cases, the foam ultimately failed, but it did so in the expected manner and did not pull away from the metal below.
But some engineers argued more tests were needed to provide statistically significant results and managers decided Thursday to do another 125 pull tests, mostly on the back side of the tank. About 5 percent of such pull tests fail, so the final number likely will be a bit higher than 151.
"We were trying to understand this problem we have, what would constitute a statistically significant sample," Cain said. "We're still working on that. What we've determined so far, though, is there are some more areas that we want to sample that would give us higher confidence, given we have positive results, that ET-132 is a good tank. And so we're going to go do that, we're going to go sample some more areas and as a result of that, we're not going to be ready to roll out of the OPF (Orbiter Processing Facility) tomorrow.
"We think the number of plug pulls we're planning on doing right now is going to delay the rollout from the OPF by at least a couple of days and subsequent to that, we're going to be adding a couple of days, probably of work in the VAB, even after we get the orbiter rolled over there and mated up. There are a certain number of things we have to do before we can remove the scaffolding and do the mating."
NASA managers would like to get Discovery off the ground as soon as possible to avoid any conflicts with the planned launch of Japan's new HTV unmanned cargo ship.
The HTV's initial launch window opens Sept. 10 and runs through Sept. 20. Two more days are available Sept. 29 and 30, but the HTV team would have to stand down between Oct. 1 and Nov. 1 because of Japanese fishing industry constraints. The next HTV launch window runs between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31.
NASA managers would like to complete the docked phase of Discovery's mission before the HTV launches.
"We're off talking to the station and international partner folks about that right now," Cain said. "It's very complicated because of their window, the station has certain constraints that they're trying to honor and so we need to let station go talk some more with their international partner friends."
Cain said it's simply too early to say when Discovery might fly or what impact it might have on downstream missions. But he seemed optimistic NASA could avoid any major disruptions.
"The bottom line is we're not going to make the 21st, we're probably only a few days down from that," he said. "It's too early for me to be able to put a fine point on that. But certainly, we'll be able to do something before the end of August, assuming, again, the results of the work we currently have planned are positive."
The plug-pull tests do not address the underlying cause of the foam shedding seen during Endeavour's launch. Cain said engineers are reviewing the tank's manufacturing history and other instances of foam loss to help pin that down. But root cause is not required to clear Discovery for flight.
Even so, Cain said, "we have to understand with some confidence, we have to have reason to believe we don't have the same circumstances with this tank with some degree of certainty. We'll continue to work toward root cause like we always do ... but we don't absolutely have to have root cause. We do need to have some understanding of the risk exposure with some degree of confidence."
While the intertank is the focus of attention, Endeavour's tank also lost foam from two other areas - an ice-frost ramp on the oxygen section of the tank and around one of the attachment points of a bi-pod strut that helps hold the shuttle's nose to the tank.
Cain said engineers are looking into a wide variety of issues to help determine what happened, including the number of times Endeavour's tank was loaded with rocket fuel.
"If you look at the number of cycles we put on this tank, if you look at the amount of weather that this tank saw sitting out at the launch pad, the severity of some of that weather and the potential for water intrusion ... we're looking at all those special circumstances, or the potential that special circumstances contributed to those foam losses," he said.
"And we're not at the bottom of that yet. We're in the process of trying to ascertain whether or not there was something unique. We've got to go back and look at our foam loss distribution assessments that we've done previously and make sure we still have the right overall risk assessment."
9:00 AM, 7/23/09: Astronauts transfer Japanese experiments
The Endeavour astronauts are working today to transfer Japanese experiments to the newly installed Japanese Exposed Facility attached to the Kibo laboratory module. A detailed mission status report will be posted here after a briefing and interviews with the ISS-21 crew.
In the meantime, here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision L of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 05:33 AM...07...11...30...Crew wakeup 07:33 AM...07...13...30...ISS daily planning conference 08:33 AM...07...14...30...MAXI grapple 08:48 AM...07...14...45...PAM 3 SLM open 08:48 AM...07...14...45...EVA-4: Tools configured 09:00 AM...07...14...57...ISS-21 news conference 09:08 AM...07...15...05...MAXI unberth 09:18 AM...07...15...15...MAXI maneuver to EFU1 09:58 AM...07...15...55...MAXI berth 10:18 AM...07...16...15...MAXI ungrapple 10:43 AM...07...16...40...ICS grapple 10:58 AM...07...16...55...PAM 1 SLM open 11:18 AM...07...17...15...ICS unberth 11:28 AM...07...17...25...JRMS maneuver to EFU7 12:08 PM...07...18...05...ICS berth 12:28 PM...07...18...25...ICS ungrapple 12:33 PM...07...18...30...EVA-4: Equipment lock preps 12:53 PM...07...18...50...SEDA AP grapple 01:08 PM...07...19...05...PAM 2 SLM open 01:28 PM...07...19...25...SEDA unberth 01:33 PM...07...19...30...Crew meals begin 01:38 PM...07...19...35...JRMS maneuver to EFU9 02:18 PM...07...20...15...SEDA berth 02:38 PM...07...20...35...SEDA ungrapple 04:23 PM...07...22...20...PAO event 04:58 PM...07...22...55...EVA-4: Procedures review 05:58 PM...07...23...55...PAO event 06:23 PM...08...00...20...ISS evening planning conference 07:30 PM...08...01...27...Mission status briefing 08:28 PM...08...02...25...EVA-4: Mask pre-breathe 08:33 PM...08...02...30...ISS crew sleep begins 08:43 PM...08...02...40...EVA-4: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 09:03 PM...08...03...00...STS crew sleep begins 10:00 PM...08...03...57...Daily highlights reel
9:10 PM, 7/22/09: Carbon dioxide levels in spacesuit never exceeded normal station/shuttle levels; extensive replanning underway; low-priority items may be dropped from final spacewalks
NASA managers terminated a spacewalk today when astronaut Chris Cassidy's carbon dioxide levels showed an upward trend due to a problem with his spacesuit's CO2 removal system. NASA managers said late Wednesday his CO2 levels never exceeded normal limits for crews inside the space station or the shuttle and that calling off the spacewalk early was simply a precaution.
"A spacesuit is a very small spacecraft and there's really not very much margin for error," said space station Flight Director Holly Ridings.
She said Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL making his first spacewalk, experienced no symptoms of hypercapnia, which include headaches, confusion and lethargy, and that his spacesuit will be equipped with a fresh canister of CO2-removing lithium hydroxide for a planned spacewalk Friday.
Cassidy and astronaut David Wolf were attempting to replace four of six batteries in the space station's oldest set of solar arrays when flight controllers became concerned about elevated CO2 levels in Cassidy's suit. At the time the spacewalk was called off, the astronauts had replaced two of the four batteries and were preparing to attach a third original battery to a storage pallet.
Instead, they left the third battery attached to a temporary fixture and returned to the Quest airlock module.
Normal CO2 levels in an astronaut's spacesuit are between 0.3 and 0.5 millimeters of Mercury. At its highest point today, Cassidy's suit had readings of 3 mm Hg. The shuttle and space station atmospheres are maintained about 5 mm Hg. Spacewalk officer Kieth Johnson said a spacesuits internal sensors will alert an astronaut if CO2 readings climb above 8 mm Hg and that symptoms of hypercapnia don't typically show up until CO2 concentrations reach 15 mm Hg.
Even so, "it became important that we move back to the airlock and put the crew in a configuration we understood based on that CO2 signature," Ridings said. "At no time was the crew in danger. The CO2 levels we saw inside the spacesuit were below what we manage to on the International Space Station and the space shuttle. I just came from talking to the flight surgeon and from talking to the crew and the shuttle commander, Mark Polansky. The crew is doing just great and they are ready to go out on the next EVA where we will (do) our four remaining battery R&Rs and complete this task."
Because one of the old 375-pound battery packs was left mounted on a flexible temporary stowage fixture, flight controllers told the shuttle-station crews not to use any exercise equipment that is not isolated from the station to avoid unwanted vibrations.
"We did leave the worksite in an unintended configuration," Ridings said. "We had temporarily stowed a battery kind of up above the worksite out on the integrated equipment assembly. The teams on the ground quickly assessed the impact of that configuration. It's very minor, we do have some additional exercise restrictions the crew will be under until we either A) have some more discussions on the ground or B) go back out on EVA-4 and resolve that work site."
Johnson said flight planners are re-assessing the crew's flight plan to re-prioritize the two remaining spacewalks. Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn will attempt to install the final four solar array batteries during a spacewalk Friday. Other high priority items include television cameras needed for the September approach of a new Japanese cargo ship.
Deployment of one or more payload storage mechanisms may be deferred to a future mission.
6:30 PM, 7/22/09: No obvious problems found with foam insulation on external tank needed for August shuttle flight
Engineers testing the adhesion of foam insulation on the external tank needed for an August shuttle flight have not found any obvious problems that would raise concern about debris shedding like the foam losses noted during Endeavour's climb to space last week, officials said Wednesday.
An unusual amount of foam insulation pulled away from the central "intertank" region of Endeavour's tank, a structurally rigid section of the huge tank that is not exposed to ultra-low cryogenic temperatures. A few of Endeavour's heat-shield tiles were dinged by falling debris, but there was no major damage and the shuttle's heat shield has been cleared for entry as is.
The shuttle Discovery's external tank (ET-132) undergoing
foam tests. (Photo: NASA TV)
The shuttle Discovery is scheduled for launch around Aug. 21 and its tank, ET-132, is being subjected to tests and a manufacturing review to determine if there are any unknown problems that might lead to unexpected foam shedding.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers have carried out 26 foam adhesion tests, pulling small cores of foam to make sure the robotically sprayed-on insulation is firmly bonded to the underlying structure. In all 26 cases, the foam remained firmly bonded and no underlying primer was exposed. While foam loss is still possible, it's not considered probable. Given the nature of bond adhesion failure modes, any foam releases that did occur would be expected relatively late, after 100 seconds.
A "plug-pull" test on the shuttle Discovery's tank.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Engineers are still discussing whether additional plug-pull tests are needed for a statistically meaningful sample, "but it's a step in the right direction," a NASA official said Wednesday.
"Some people think they feel pretty confident this is a good intertank and then there are some people who say we're not there yet, we need some more data," he said.
Engineers also are still discussing the loss of a small piece of foam from a so-called ice-frost ramp on the liquid oxygen section of Endeavour's tank. A similar foam incident occurred in the same place during a May shuttle flight.
Discovery currently is targeted for launch around Aug. 21. But foam testing has delayed the shuttle's attachment to ET-132 and if the orbiter is not moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building for mating in the next few days, the launch date will begin slipping.
4:05 PM, 7/22/09: Astronauts told to end spacewalk due to carbon dioxide problem in Cassidy's suit (UPDATED at 4:40 with end of spacewalk)
Astronauts David Wolf and Christopher Cassidy were told to cut short their space station battery replacement work and head back to the Quest airlock today because of a problem with the carbon dioxide removal system in Cassidy's spacesuit. The astronauts made it back to the airlock without incident and the five-hour 59-minute spacewalk officially ended at 4:31 p.m., about a half hour earlier than planned.
Dave Wolf's helmet cam view of Chris Cassidy at the entrance
to the Quest airlock module. (Photo: NASA TV)
"Hey, like I said, we were looking at the LIOH (lithium hydroxide) trend in Chris's suit," Aki Hoshide radioed from mission control around 3:52 p.m. EDT. "We do see it trending up. This is probably not by working hard, but it seems like the canister itself is experiencing some problems. So at this point, we would like to start cleaning up. How copy so far?"
"I think I copied, the canister may be having problems, it's not a metabolism-related issue?" Wolf asked.
"And that is correct."
"Interesting," Cassidy said.
"Um hm," Wolf agreed. "Do you see the possibility of an imminent canister failure? We're cleaning up, by the way."
"And yeah, it's not an imminent failure," Hoshide said. "We do still have some time, we just wanted to make sure that you guys are back in the airlock.
"OK."
A few moments later, however, flight controllers told Cassidy to head on back to the Quest airlock module without delay. Cassidy's carbon dioxide levels were near NASA's safety limit at that point, but they dropped back down before he entered the airlock.
The goal of today's spacewalk was to replace four of six 375-pound batteries in the space station's far left solar array. When the astronauts were told to wrap up their work, two new batteries had been installed and a third old battery had been removed from the solar array's integrated electronics assembly. The old battery was left attached to a temporary mount.
The Endeavour astronauts plan two more spacewalks, Friday and Monday. The rest of the batteries presumably will be installed during those excursions, but it's not yet clear if the astronauts will be able to complete all their planned work in the final two EVAs.
This was the 128th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the ninth so far this year and the third of five planned by Endeavour's crew. Total station asssembly EVA time now stands at 798 hours and 30 minutes.
01:40 PM, 7/22/09: Battery replacement begins
Three hours into a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, astronauts David Wolf and Christopher Cassidy have removed and replaced the first of four batteries in the International Space Station's P6 solar array that are being swapped out today.
Battery replacement work begins. (Photo: NASA TV)
After installing handles on the first battery, Cassidy pulled the 375-pound power pack out of the P6 integrated electronics assembly and temporarily mounted it on a storage fixture. He and Wolf then removed a new battery from a pallet of six and installed it in the old battery's place. Flight controllers said telemetry showed the new battery was working normally.
The P6 solar array, the oldest on the space station, is equipped with six batteries, but only four are being replaced during today's spacewalk. The other two will be installed during a spacewalk Friday.
Wolf and Cassidy began today's spacewalk by removing insulation on experiment packages bound from the Japanese Exposed Facility and installing insulation on critical electrical connectors. That work ran a bit longer than expected, but the astronauts were able to make up some of the lost time later.
10:35 AM, 7/22/09: Spacewalk No. 3 begins
Astronauts David Wolf and Christopher Cassidy switched their spacesuits to battery power at 10:32 a.m. EDT to officially kick off a challenging spacewalk to replace four massive solar array batteries.
After setting up tools and tethers, Wolf and Cassidy will head to the newly installed Japanese Exposed facility on the front left side of the space station to remove insulation from experiments that will be mounted on the platform Thursday. Wolf also will install handrails to assist future spacewalkers.
The astronauts then will make their way to the far left end of the station's main power truss to change out four of fix batteries used by the lab's oldest set of solar arrays.
9:00 AM, 7/22/09: Astronauts prepare for spacewalk
Astronauts David Wolf and Christopher Cassidy are preparing for a challenging spacewalk today, working at the far left end of the International Space Station's long power truss to replace four of six aging batteries in the lab's oldest set of solar arrays.
If one visualizes a football field, the station's airlock is on the right side of the 50-yeard line while the port-six, or P6, solar array is deep in the left end zone. Along with working far from the safety of the airlock, the spacewalkers must manually swap out 375-pound batteries without damaging fragile cooling fins.
"EVA 3 brings its own challenges," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "Chris, Navy Seal, he and I will go out several hundred feet, multiple tether lengths out. There's no way to get back quick. The (space station) robot arm will place these large solar array batteries reasonably near where they will be installed. But we'll be handling these heavy batteries, each the size of a small refrigerator, each with rows of delicate cooling fins on the back.
"And we will pull those out of the Vertical Cargo Carrier, hand them back and forth until we get them in position and mate those fins with the opposing fins on the space station. Those are cooling fins so those batteries won't overheat in use. We'll do four of those batteries on EVA-3. We'll do two more EVA-4 and we consider this one of the highest critical pieces of work to do on this mission."
The final two P6 batteries will be replaced during a spacewalk Friday by Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn.
Today's spacewalk was scheduled to begin at 10:58 a.m. EDT, but the astronauts were running ahead of schedule in their preparations and could start early. This will be the 128th EVA devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the ninth so far this year and the third of five planned by Endeavour's crew. It will be the seventh spacewalk for Wolf and the first for Cassidy, a former Navy Seal.
For identification, Wolf will be wearing a spacesuit with solid red stripes around the legs while Cassidy will use a suit with diagonal stripes.
"P6 is the truss segment that's been up there the longest and the batteries are therefore the oldest so those batteries need to be changed out and there's six of them total," Cassidy said in a NASA interview. "We've learned in our training that it's unrealistic to get six completed in one spacewalk. So Dave and I will tackle four and they need to be done in pairs. You know, when you read the instructions on your flashlight and it says, 'Don't mix an old one and a new one together,' I never knew why. Well, the same thing applies to space batteries. You want the pairs to be both new batteries. We can't mix old ones and new ones.
"So consequently if we do two and we try to do the third, we're committed to the fourth. I think we could probably do five in one EVA, but it doesn't make sense from a hardware perspective. They're done in sets. So we're doing these first four batteries."
Each nickel-hydrogen battery measures 40-by-36-by-18 inches and weighs 375 pounds. Two batteries in series can store 8 kilowatts of power. The batteries have a design life of 6.5 years and can endure more than 38,000 charge/discharge cycles.
"P6 is a long ways away from the airlock," Cassidy said. "I think it's the farthest you could get from the airlock hatch because the airlock's on the starboard side. We're going port, and it's way out there. We have safety tethers that allow us to go 55 or 85 feet. There's two different sizes and so we have to stack ... some together to give us twice the distance.
"The task in and of itself, of physically pulling out a battery and putting it in, is not necessarily the hard part," Cassidy said. "The hard part is the choreography with the folks moving the arm, Doug (Hurley) and Julie (Payette). As we grab the battery, they'll guide the pallet, the ICC-VLD, away from us, essentially pulling the battery out of the carrier. And then Dave and I have to ... do a series of hand offs. He grabs it and then I move and then I'll grab it and he lets go and then he moves and we kind of do this hopping motion until we get to the spot where the battery's going to go."
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision K of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/22 06:03 AM...06...12...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 06:43 AM...06...12...40...EVA-3: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 07:28 AM...06...13...25...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 07:53 AM...06...13...50...EVA-3: Campout EVA preps 08:03 AM...06...14...00...ISS daily planning conference 09:23 AM...06...15...20...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge 09:38 AM...06...15...35...EVA-3: Spacesuit prebreathe 10:28 AM...06...16...25...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization 10:33 AM...06...16...30...SSRMS ICC maneuver to EVA work site 10:58 AM...06...16...55...EVA-3: Spacesuits to battery power 11:03 AM...06...17...00...EVA-3: Airlock egress 11:13 AM...06...17...10...EVA-3: Setup 11:28 AM...06...17...25...EVA-3: EV1: JLE PL preps 11:28 AM...06...17...25...EVA-3: EV2: JEF MLI removal 11:58 AM...06...17...55...EVA-3: P6 battery replacement (4 of 6) 04:43 PM...06...22...40...EVA-3: Cleanup and ingress 04:48 PM...06...22...45...SSRMS maneuvers to clear SARJ 05:28 PM...06...23...25...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization 05:38 PM...06...23...35...Spacesuit servicing 06:18 PM...07...00...15...Evening planning conference 07:30 PM...07...01...27...Mission status briefing 09:03 PM...07...03...00...ISS crew sleep begins 09:33 PM...07...03...30...STS crew sleep begins 10:00 PM...07...03...57...Daily highlights reel
06:15 PM, 7/21/09: How to sneeze in space
During a Twitter/YouTube question-and-answer session aboard the International Space Station Tuesday, crew members fielded a variety of enquiries about life in orbit, including one that shed new light on the rigors of spacewalking.
"Hi, I'm Dawn from Indianapolis, Indiana, and my question is if you're in a spacesuit, especially out on an EVA and you have to sneeze, how do you deal with that? Especially if it splatters," one viewer asked in a video message uplinked to the astronauts. "Second part, if your nose itches while you're in a spacesuit, how do you deal with that? Thank you."
Astronaut David Wolf, explaining how to sneez in space. (Photo: NASA TV)
"Great question, absolutely great question because I've done it quite a few times, most recently yesterday," astronaut and veteran spacewalker David Wolf replied from the station. "And you learn in training, I don't know how to say this, but aim low, off the windshield, because it can mess up your view and there's no way to clear it. That's how you do it."
The solution to an itching nose remains a mystery.
4:35 PM, 7/21/09: NASA administrator optimistic about manned space flight reviews; confident gap between shuttle and replacement will not be drawn out
New NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a respected former shuttle commander and retired Marine Corp major general, said Tuesday he's confident an on-going presidential review of NASA's manned space program will not result in changes that would lengthen the projected five-year gap between the end of shuttle operations and the debut of a new rocket system to replace it.
While he would not say what sort of rocket system he favors - NASA's current Ares program or some alternative - Bolden said review Chairman Norman Augustine understands the critical need to replace the shuttle as soon as possible to minimize reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets.
"I definitely have concerns about the gap growing," Bolden told CBS News in an interview. "I don't want anyone to think I have any doubts whatsoever that the Augustine committee is going to bring in a group of options that will include something that is incredibly attractive. I would not be surprised if they brought in an option that was incredibly incredibly attractive, but we couldn't do for one reason or another.
"So, I'm comfortable that we'll get reasonable options that we can make work. ... In my conversation with him, I came away feeling good that he understood the importance of not prolonging the gap. So my guess ... is the options he's going to bring in are going to be options that don't prolong the gap. I don't want to second guess, but I would be surprised if he brought in an option that said OK, it's worth waiting 10 years for."
Confirmed by the Senate last week, Bolden assumes the leadership of the civilian space agency at a particularly critical time. Along with the Augustine review of NASA's plans to build a new rocket system to replace the shuttle, national space policy is being re-assessed and NASA's long-range goal of returning to the moon is in some doubt.
Under a post-Columbia Bush-administration directive, NASA is attempting to complete the International Space Station by the end of 2010 before retiring the space shuttle fleet. Money freed up by retiring the shuttle and finishing the station will go into development of a new rocket, known as Ares 1, that will propel Apollo-like Orion crew capsules to the space station starting around 2015.
Until then, NASA and U.S. partner astronauts will have to hitch rides to the station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets.
NASA's long-range plan is to build a huge new unmanned rocket called the Ares 5 to boost lunar landers and docked Orion capsules to the moon for long-duration stays on the surface. The ultimate, as-yet-unfunded, goal is to launch manned missions to Mars.
But NASA was not given significant new funding to kick start development of the new rockets, resulting in the projected five-year gap between the end of shuttle operations and the debut of Ares-1/Orion.
President Obama has expressed support for the Constellation program, but he ordered the Augustine review, which could result in a major change of direction. Another presidential review is underway to look at whether changes are needed to the national space policy that governs commercial, civilian and military space operations.
The space policy review is "totally different from everything else you hear about," Bolden told agency workers Tuesday. "The nation needs to have a coherent idea about what it's going to use space for. And that's military space, that's commercial space, that's NASA space, that's everything, satellites, people all that stuff. And there needs to be a coherent policy.
"So President Obama has asked (for) a group to come up with, to at least take a look at, the national space policy. And that's already underway to a limited extent and we hope to be participating in that as a full member of the people doing that work.
"The Augustine committee is something everybody's heard about. It is not something to fear, to be afraid of. I would have been remiss in my duties as the NASA administrator if I came in to office and I didn't go pull the center directors together and the (associate administrators) and say OK, tell me what we're doing, tell me how it's going and tell me what we might need to change."
In an "all hands" meeting with agency workers carried by NASA's satellite television system, Bolden said he goes by Charlie, not Charles or Chuck, that he cries easily, that he is a "participatory" leader and a dedicated environmentalist.
"I think I was an environmentalist before the first time I flew in space, but my first spaceflight - other than crying a lot because of its awesome perspective - I really gained a healthy respect for this planet on which we live. ... My favorite place is the Middle East. I have friends there, I have traveled there, I have done lots of things there. It is incredibly beautiful from outer space and you would never think it is as violent as it is.
"In contrast, you look at the Amazon rain forest, which is just incredibly breathtaking from space and yet now, because of our remote sensing and other things, you can see the devastation that's being wreaked there by deforestation and other things. So there are things we need to do. We need to provide data to policy makers and decision makers ... so people can make smart decisions about it."
In an interview with CBS News Tuesday, Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver discussed the challenges facing NASA with space consultant William Harwood. Here is a transcript of the conversation (questions edited for space):
CBS News: You're coming in at a critical time for NASA. There's the five-year gap between the end of shuttle and whatever replaces it, the Augustine review, the national space policy review, the Office of Management and Budget seems to be after your money. I know you've barely gotten your feet wet and I know you're waiting to see what comes out of the review panels. But what's your personal take on the Constellation program? Do you support the current goals of finish station, retire shuttle and return to the moon?
Bolden: Bill, interestingly, I don't feel I am coming in having to start anything from scratch. I have told the NASA community as well as Congress that I owe an incredible debt of gratitude to ... the NASA leadership team that have kind of really kept things moving since (former Administrator) Mike Griffin left. They have been doing a lot of internal reviews and the like that I think will go hand in glove with the Augustine committee.
I'm excited personally about the prospective presidential review of national space policy, because I think that's critical. I wish we had done it the other way around, to be quite honest. I would have loved for there to have been a national space policy review that set the overall tone and then come in and allow us to take a look at how NASA could better ensure the things we're doing fit into that. Because what you don't want to do is come out of Augustine, make some decisions about how you want to do things and then find that all of the sudden the national space policy has changed. We're going to have to be a little clairvoyant in trying to hope that we're in tune with whatever the revised national space policy is.
In answer to your other question, I'm very positive on Constellation in concept. We actually need, we have got to have routine alternative access to space, and that's for humans as well as cargo. I welcome the Augustine committee work because it's work that I would have had to do on my own dime after coming in as the administrator. I would have had to ask the kind of questions that Norm is going to ask and I'm not as smart as Norm. I don't have the depth of experience in the corporate world that he has, nor the exposure to the experts that he can bring in. So I probably could have found all the information that he's going to bring us. I'm not sure I would have been able to do it in the amount of time ... he's going to do it. So I'm excited about seeing the results that come in, I'm not afraid of them, to be quite honest.
CBS News: Looking at Ares 1, Ares 5, starting around 2015, going to the moon. Is that a program that before you were approached to be administrator, was that a program that made sense to you?
Bolden: As a result of my experience with co-chairing the previous space transportation architecture study group that was ordered up by (former Administrator) Sean O'Keefe, I think, we were headed in this general direction. You may remember that all those different study groups that we were doing ... we were all headed in the direction of trying to decide the same kinds of things that I think the Augustine committee is going to bring in. So the tendency of our study at that time was toward what has now become known as Constellation and Ares and everything. I wasn't surprised that was the decision made at all.
CBS News: If it turns out Ares is not supported by the upcoming reviews, do you have any concerns the gap will grow?
Bolden: I definitely have concerns about the gap growing. Let me couch this the best way I can. I don't want anyone to think I have any doubts whatsoever that the Augustine committee is going to bring in a group of options that will include something that is incredibly attractive. I would not be surprised if they brought in an option that was incredibly incredibly attractive but we couldn't do for one reason or another. So, I'm comfortable that we'll get reasonable options that we can make work. The one thing that Augustine, in my conversation and Lori's conversation with him, I came away feeling good that he understood the importance of not prolonging the gap. So my guess ... is the options he's going to bring in are going to be options that don't prolong the gap. I don't want to second guess, but I would be surprised if he brought in an option that said OK, it's worth waiting 10 years for. I could be wrong.
CBS News: You mentioned OMB in your NASA Update. There are those who believe OMB is out to pretty much kill off Constellation, if not manned space flight. You mentioned you've had some talks with them. Have you had a toe-to-toe with them? What's your take?
Bolden: "No, no, no, we have not had a toe to toe, I've not had a toe-to-toe with anybody and I don't intend to have them, to be quite honest.
CBS News: I stated that badly. I didn't mean toe to toe in the sense of a fight. I just mean do you have optimism you can get along?
Bolden: You will hear me use the term 'I've been blessed' a lot, and I have. I have the greatest deputy administrator for the time. Lori was here through the (presidential) transition. She (has) had an opportunity to get to talk to people in a totally unbiased way in trying to get information about the space agency and what other people thought about us and which direction we should be going. The purpose of the transition team was to gather information, as it turns out, for me. At the time, they didn't know who the administrator was going to be but their job, as directed by the White House, was to get information that will help the next NASA administrator, but also help the president give that NASA administrator some guidance.
And my guidance from the president has been very brief, in fact, very explicit: incite inspiration in young people and the country again. I mean, it was a very simple message. He didn't give me any specific direction about how to do that, but his challenge to me was make it the way it used to be when he was a kid. The term he used was riding on his grandfather's shoulder as he saw the Apollo 11 astronauts, when his grandfather would hoist him up on his shoulder and watch the Apollo astronauts come in to shore after being picked up out in Hawaii. That's my charge, to inspire kids to want to get into space and science and all that stuff again. But we can do that.
CBS News: But it's obviously going to take money to do that and...
Bolden: Everything takes money! We have got to figure out ways to regain - I hate to use that word because that means it's been lost - I have to figure out a way for Lori and me to gain the confidence of Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and even the president. You know, the president took a gamble on us. He knew about our work, I think, and people like Sen. Nelson probably beat him up a little bit about both of us because he has an opinion about our capability. But he is waiting to see if we can deliver. And we've got to do that. We can't ask for anything if we don't give people an indication that we know what we're doing, that we have a clear path that we want to follow, and I think we're developing that. I think we will gain people's trust.
CBS News: I've got 30 seconds left, so let me ask Lori a quick question. What's your optimism level that when all is said and done that you're going to come out with a manned space program that's going to be viable and will perhaps do at least some of what Charlie wants it to do, which is inspire people and go somewhere beyond Earth orbit?
Garver: Well, I am incredibly optimistic about that, Bill, and I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. I think it's transition time and change is not necessarily a bad thing. I do believe that under Charlie's leadership, as he says, we'll have some options which he can choose, he and (presidential Science Advisor John) Holdren, which will take us beyond Earth orbit in a way that all of America and the world can again be proud.
CBS News: Thanks very much.
9:10 AM, 7/21/09: Japanese experiments removed from shuttle; NASA administrator to address agency; crew looks forward to off-duty time
The Endeavour astronauts spent the morning working with the shuttle and station robot arms, pulling a pallet of Japanese experiments from the orbiter's payload bay and moving it into position for installation on a new experiment platform Thursday.
The pallet, known as the JLE, carries three experiments and is designed to lock in place on the newly installed Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF.
"We're going to do another series of robotic handoffs," commander Mark Polansky said in a NASA interview. "We'll go and we'll grapple it with our own arm, the shuttle arm, and we'll take it out of the payload bay and we'll maneuver it off to the side where the station arm is ready and it will go ahead and grapple that.
"After that, we'll release the shuttle arm from it and we'll move ourselves in a position where we will provide camera support and then the station arm will take the JLE and we'll move it in a position where it can then berth to the JEF. The JEF is berthed to the (Kibo module). On the end of the JEF are several of these different ports where you can berth a payload. And there was one specifically in mind to handle the JLE.
"So it gets driven to a position where they don't actually touch. It's not the kind of a mechanism where they connect per se and have bolts driven in and everything else. This is a temporary thing so it will get driven to a point here where a series of latches can be commanded to go ahead and grab it and pull it in and that's where it'll remain for most of the mission."
The experiments mounted on the JLE will be moved to the exposed facility platform Thursday by the Kibo module's robot arm.
Following the morning's robotics work, the astronauts will enjoy a half-day off before preparing for the mission's third spacewalk Wednesday.
At noon, new NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will speak to agency employees on NASA television, his first address since confirmation last Wednesday. And at 3 p.m., video from cameras mounted on Endeavour's solid-fuel boosters will be carried on NASA TV.
During Endeavour's launching last Wednesday, an unusual amount of foam insulation peeled away from the central "intertank" region of the shuttle's external tank. The booster video may shed light on how the foam came off, if not why.
At the Kennedy Space Center, scaffolding is being erected around external tank No. 132, scheduled for use by the shuttle Discovery in late August, so engineers can conduct so-called "pull-plug" tests on its intertank foam to measure how securely it is bonded to the underlying metal. The goal is to find out if ET-132 has any problems that might cause similar foam shedding when Discovery takes off.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision J of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/21 06:03 AM...05...12...00...Crew wakeup 07:43 AM...05...13...40...ISS daily planning conference 08:08 AM...05...14...05...SRMS grapples JLE 08:33 AM...05...14...30...SRMS unberths JLE 09:08 AM...05...15...05...SRMS JLE handoff 09:13 AM...05...15...10...EVA-3: Tools configured 09:28 AM...05...15...25...SSRMS grapples JLE 09:43 AM...05...15...40...SRMS ungrapples JLE 10:03 AM...05...16...00...SSRMS installs JLE 10:43 AM...05...16...40...Spacesuit swap 11:38 AM...05...17...35...SSRMS releases JLE 11:53 AM...05...17...50...SSRMS ICC removal from POA 11:58 AM...05...17...55...Equipment lock preps 12:00 PM...05...17...57...NASA Update with Charles Bolden 12:58 PM...05...18...55...Crew meals begin 01:00 PM...05...18...57...Mission status briefing 02:13 PM...05...20...10...Twitter/YouTube PAO event 02:43 PM...05...20...40...Shuttle crew off duty 03:00 PM...05...20...57...SRB video release 05:00 PM...05...22...57...SRB video replay 05:58 PM...05...23...55...EVA-3: Procedures review 06:58 PM...06...00...55...Evening planning conference 08:28 PM...06...02...25...EVA-3: Mask pre-breathe 09:08 PM...06...03...05...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 09:33 PM...06...03...30...ISS crew sleep begins 10:03 PM...06...04...00...STS crew sleep begins 11:00 PM...06...04...57...Daily highlights reel
6:25 PM, 7/20/09: Spacewalk No. 2 ends
Astronauts David Wolf and Thomas Marshburn returned to the space station's Quest airlock module and started repressurizing at 6:20 p.m. EDT, officially ending a six-hour 53-minute spacewalk.
This was the 127th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the second of five planned by Endeavour's crew, the sixth for Wolf and the first for Marshburn. Total space station EVA time now stands at 792 hours and 31 minutes.
Wolf and Marshburn successfully transferred a spare KU-band antenna to long-term storage on the space station, along with a backup coolant system pump module and a spare drive motor for the station's robot arm transporter. Installation of a television camera on the Japanese Exposed Facility experiment platform was deferred to a later spacewalk.
4:55 PM, 7/20/09: Coolant unit, robot arm transporter drive motor moved to station; TV camera installation deferred
Spacewalkers David Wolf and Thomas Marshburn have successfully transferred a spare KU-band antenna, a backup coolant system pump module and a robot arm transporter drive motor to the International Space Station, putting the spares in storage to protect against failures after the shuttle fleet is retired next year.
Dave Wolf disconnects his foot restraint from the station's robot arm.
(Photo: NASA TV)
The astronauts had no major problems, but the transfer work took longer than expected and flight controllers told them to defer a final planned task: installation of a television camera on the new Japanese Exposed Facility experiment platform. The camera will be installed during a later spacewalk.
Instead, Marshburn was asked to install insulation on cables used to route station power to the shuttle while Wolf got off the station's arm and packed up tools and equipment.
3:20 PM, 7/20/09: Spare antenna transferred to station
Astroanut David Wolf, anchored to the end of the space station's robot arm, has successfully transferred a fragile Ku-band antenna module to a storage platform on the lab's solar array truss.
Dave Wolf carries the Ku-band space-to-ground antenna to the station.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Wolf and fellow spacewalker Thomas Marshburn currently are moving a 1,300-pound coolant system pump module to the station, the second of three critical spares being transferred today. Once the pump module is in place, Wolf will retrieve a spare robot arm transporter drive unit and mount it on external stowage platform No. 3.
The components are being stored on the station to protect against failures down the road, after the shuttle fleet has been retired.
With the SGANT antenna in place, Wolf maneuvers the pump
module into position for storage. (Photo: NASA TV)
The only other major item on today's agenda is to mount a television camera on the Japanese Exposed Facility attached to the Kibo lab module. The camera is one of two that will be used help move experiments to and from Kibo using the lab's robot arm. The cameras also will be needed in September to help dock a new Japanese cargo ship.
12:55 PM, 7/20/09: Station toilet repairs complete
Space station astronauts repaired a broken toilet in the U.S Destiny laboratory today, replacing components that were contaminated during a malfunction Sunday. After tests to make sure the complex system was operating properly, flight controllers cleared the combined 13-member shuttle-station crew to resume normal use.
The toilet broke down Sunday when chemically treated water flooded a pump and contaminated other downstream equipment. The astronauts removed access panels and replaced a half-dozen components during work Sunday and Monday.
While that was going on, the shuttle's seven-member crew was restricted to using Endeavour's on-board toilet and the six-man station crew was told to use the potty in the Russian Zvezda command module.
Going into Endeavour's mission, NASA planned for several shuttle crew members to use the toilet in the Destiny module to avoid filling up the shuttle's waste water tank. Normally, the tank is vented overboard when it nears a full load, but that was not an option for Endeavour's crew. Docked to the front of the station near the Japanese Kibo module, the shuttle's waste water nozzle could have contaminated experiment attachment fittings on the newly installed Japanese Exposed Facility.
But given the quick repair of Destiny's waste and hygiene compartment - and assuming no other problems develop - engineers said the shuttle waste water tank was in no danger of filling up before Endeavour undocks at the end of the mission.
11:30 AM, 7/20/09: Spacewalk No. 2 begins
Astronauts David Wolf and Thomas Marshburn switched their spacesuits to battery power at 11:27 a.m. EDT to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. The goals of the excursion are to store critical spares on the International Space Station and to mount a television camera on a newly installed Japanese experiment platform.
Astronaut Dave Wolf prepares tools for today's spacewalk.
(Photo: NASA TV)
This is the 127th EVA devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the eighth so far this year and the second of five planned for Endeavour's crew. It is Wolf's sixth spacewalk and Marshburn's first. Going into today's EVA, nearly 90 spacewalkers from the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Sweden had logged 785 hours and 38 minutes of spacewalk time building and maintaining the station.
It will take Wolf and Marshburn about a half hour to set up safety tethers and tools before beginning work to move three space station components - an antenna assembly, a cooling system pump module and a robot arm transporter drive motor - to external storage platform No. 3 on the station's solar array truss.
8:50 AM, 7/20/09: Astronauts prepare for second spacewalk; toilet repair work
Astronauts David Wolf and Thomas Marshburn are preparing for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk today to move critical spare parts to the International Space Station as a hedge against failures after the shuttle is retired. Crewmates inside, meanwhile, will continue work to repair the toilet in the U.S. lab module after a malfunction Sunday.
"On EVA 2 we will be moving three boxes, space-to-ground antenna, a pump module and a linear drive unit (for the station's robot arm transporter)," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "These are critical spares to survival of the space station in the years past shuttle retirement.
"In the case of the space-to-ground antenna, it has a very delicate, large antenna. I'll be holding this box through a very large maneuver (on the end of the station's robot arm) as we bring it in to the stowage platform. Part of the structure of the stowage platform will actually come within an inch or so of this delicate antenna, so Tom and I will be manipulating this box slowly down, kind of holding our breath. And I can tell you after we get that locked into place and didn't damage that antenna, I'm going to be breathing a lot easier."
Today's spacewalk, scheduled to begin around 11:28 a.m., is the 127th EVA devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the eighth so far this year and the second of five planned for Endeavour's crew. It will be Wolf's sixth spacewalk and Marshburn's first.
For identification, Wolf, call sign EV-1, will be wearing a spacesuit with solid red stripes around the legs. Marshburn, EV-2, will be wearing a suit with broken stripes.
After the antenna, the 1,300-pound pump module and the drive unit are transferred to external storage platform No. 3, Wolf and Marshburn will move up to the newly installed Japanese Exposed Facility experiment platform on the outboard end of the Kibo lab module and attach the first of two television cameras. The cameras are needed for normal operations and for the September approach of a new Japanese cargo ship. A second camera will be installed later in the mission.
Space station commander Gennady Padalka and Frank De Winne, meanwhile, will work in the Destiny laboratory module to replace components in the waste and hygiene compartment, or WHC, a NASA-supplied, Russian-inspired toilet that's tied into the U.S. segment's water and urine recycling system.
The high-tech toilet malfunctioned Sunday when chemically treated water "flooded" a pump module and contaminate several other components.
Space station Flight Director Derek Hassman said early Monday that engineers are hopeful the toilet can be repaired and returned to service in short order.
"It's actually going very well," he said. "When we first started seeing the issues early in the crew day yesterday, there was a lot of concern it may take multiple days, if not close to a week, to recover the toilet functionality, which is obviously a big deal with this many people on board."
The shuttle-space station complex currently is hosting a record combined crew of 13 astronauts and cosmonauts. The station is equipped with two toilets for its six-person crew, the one that malfunctioned and one in the Russian Zvezda command module. The space shuttle Endeavour also is equipped with a toilet. After the malfunction Sunday, the station crew was told to use the Russian potty and Endeavour's seven-member crew was told to use the shuttle's.
"As it turns out, on the second half of the crew day we were able to remove a number of the components in the toilet system that were affected by the failure we saw," Hassmann said. "(Today) there are two more components in the system that we're going to replace. There are between six and seven individual components that by the middle of the crew day we expect to have been removed and replaced. These are all spares that are designed to be changed out.
"So we made a lot of progress much quicker than we expected initially based on the initial signatures we saw," he said. "I have some hope that by the end of the crew day we may have recovered the functionality."
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. NASA plans to hold an Apollo news conference at 9:30 a.m. that will be carried on NASA television. At 8 p.m. this evening, NASA TV's public channel will carry coverage of an Apollo celebration at the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. As a result, today's mission status briefing, scheduled for 8:30 p.m., will be carried on NASA's media channel.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision I of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07:13 AM...04...13...10...EVA-2: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 07:30 AM...04...13...27...Video file 07:58 AM...04...13...55...EVA-2: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 08:18 AM...04...14...15...ISS daily planning conference 08:23 AM...04...14...20...EVA-2: Campout EVA preps 08:48 AM...04...14...45...ISS: Toilet repair work 09:30 AM...04...15...27...Apollo 11 news conference 09:53 AM...04...15...50...EVA-2: Spacesuit purge 10:08 AM...04...16...05...EVA-2: Spacesuit prebreathe 10:58 AM...04...16...55...EVA-2: Crew lock depressurization 11:28 AM...04...17...25...EVA-2: Spacesuits to battery power 11:33 AM...04...17...30...EVA-2: Airlock egress 11:43 AM...04...17...40...EVA-2: Setup 11:58 AM...04...17...55...EVA-2: ICC ORU transfers 04:13 PM...04...22...10...EVA-2: JEF forward camera installation 05:13 PM...04...23...10...EVA-2: Cleanup and airlock ingress 05:58 PM...04...23...55...EVA-2: Airlock repressurization 06:08 PM...05...00...05...Spacesuit servicing 06:48 PM...05...00...45...Evening planning conference 08:00 PM...05...01...57...Apollo 11 event (public channel) 08:30 PM...05...02...27...Mission status briefing (media channel) 09:33 PM...05...03...30...ISS crew sleep begins 10:03 PM...05...04...00...STS crew sleep begins 11:00 PM...05...04...57...Daily highlights reel
11:45 AM, 7/19/09: Space station toilet malfunctions (UPDATED at 1:30 p.m. with mission status briefing)
The new toilet in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module aboard the International Space Station, currently hosting a combined crew of 13, broke down today. Flight controllers told the astronauts to use toilets in the Russian part of the station and aboard the shuttle Endeavour until the problem is resolved.
"When you get a second, if you could put an out-of-service note on the WHC (waste and hygiene compartment) and advise the crew members that station crew members will have to use the (Russian toilet) and shuttle crew members on the shuttle until further notice," Hal Getzelman radioed from mission control.
European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne acknowledge the instructions and asked if engineers had an estimate on how long it might take to get the toilet back in operation.
"No, we don't have a good estimate," Getzelman said. "What happened, the pre-treat (chemical), we think, flooded the pump separator and we may have got some fluid where we didn't want it and it'll take us a while to work through a procedure to recover."
"OK, Hal," De Winne replied. "I have some (time) available the entire day, I'm available to work the procedure."
"OK, we may have some quicker actions to inspect, but we'll advise you when those are ready."
About a half-hour later, Getzelman told De Winne to don safety goggles and protective gear before opening access panels to determine if critical components were hot due to a chemical reaction related to the initial problem. De Winne reported the pump module was not particularly hot to the touch and the fluid lines looked normal.
The space station is equipped with a Russian toilet in the Zvezda command module and the new U.S.-supplied WHC in the Destiny module. Two toilets are required for the station's permanent six-member crew.
For Endeavour's mission, four of the shuttle astronauts were asked to use the station facilities to avoid waste water dumps from the shuttle during the docked phase of the mission to avoid contaminating a newly installed Japanese experiment platform that was attached to the Kibo lab module Saturday.
"Previously, with the shuttle docked to the ISS, it would be very common to have a waste water dump at some point during the mission," said Flight Director Brian Smith. "But due to the proximity of the nozzle on the orbiter where that waste water is vented relative to the exposed facility, there is a concern for contaminating some of the (payload) attach mechanisms around that exposed facility. So we no longer will be doing waste water dumps while the orbiter is docked.
"What that means is, we need to manage the level of the waste water tank inside the orbiter and make sure we don't fill it before the orbiter undocks. Once the orbiter undcks and flies away, it's free to do a waste water dump. So we're just managing the level of the tank until we get to undocking."
In the near term, Smith said, "all the shuttle crew members using the facilities on the orbiter is not going to be an issue. If this problem proves to be long term, multiple days ... then we'll re-address the situation and see what we have to do. But in the short term, there's no issue."
9:50 AM, 7/19/09: Astronauts focus on equipment transfers, preparations for spacewalk Monday
The 13-member shuttle-space station crew is working through a revised timeline today, focusing on logistics transfers, spacewalk preparations and the robotic transfer of spare parts and equipment from Endeavour to a work site on the station's solar power truss.
Flight planners built two timelines for today, one that included a focused inspection to better assess heat shield damage and one that did not. Late Friday, engineers decided there was no need for any additional inspections and the crew is working through the alternate flight plan today, moving the spare parts transfers up and devoting more time to logistics transfers.
"Early in the day, we're going to pull out what's called the Integrated Cargo Carrier and that's a piece of structure that's launched in the shuttle payload bay and includes three critical spares for the International Space Station, plus the (solar array) battery system that's going to be changed out on a later EVA," said space station Flight Director Derek Hassmann.
Mounted on the Integrated Cargo Carrier are a spare antenna assembly, along with a spare cooling system pump module and a replacement drive unit for the station's robot arm transporter. In addition, six 375-pound batteries are mounted on the carrier to replace aging batteries used by the station's oldest set of solar arrays. The batteries will be installed during the crew's third and fourth spacewalks.
"So we're going to use the shuttle robotic arm to pick the ICC out of the shuttle payload bay, we're going to hand it off to the station arm and then we're going to actually attach this Integrated Cargo Carrier at a point on the truss and then release it," Hassmann said.
"And then on EVA 2 (Monday), the spacewalking crew will move out to that work site on the truss and they're going to remove three of those space station spares, with the help of the robotic arm, and install those spares at places on the truss so they're there if and when we need them later down the road."
The second half of the day will be devoted to spacewalk preparations and logistics transfers to and from the shuttle.
"We'll be doing the standard work inside the airlock to get the tools set up, to get the suits set up and toward the end of the day, we'll do the final procedures review with the crew to prepare for EVA-2," Hassmann said.
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata plans to install replacement shock absorbers on the station crew's advanced resistive exercise device, a sophisticated workout machine that mimics the performance of exercise machines on Earth.
"Nothing performs exactly in space as it did on the ground," Hassmann said. "The crew has really enjoyed working on the ARED, they like it, they like the exercise it gives them. ... Koichi is going to change out a couple of the components that basically absorb the shock associated with that exercise. So we're hoping at the end of the day, that piece of exercise equipment will be recovered and back in normal operation."
Despite the demands of a combined crew of 13 astronauts and cosmonauts, Hassmann said the space station's systems are operating normally with no technical problems of any significance.
"The station systems continue to work extremely well," he said. "The big highlight (Saturday) was the activation and checkout of the (Japanese) Exposed Facility and that all went very well. The power, data and thermal systems are all up and running and the station systems continue to perform extremely well. We're not working any issues on the station side."
A Canadian Space Agency public affairs event with station astronaut Robert Thirsk and shuttle flight engineer Julie Payette is planned for 6:08 p.m. An Apollo 11 event, the John Glenn Lecture Series "40th Anniversary of Apollo 11" from the Smithsonian National and Space Museum, will be carried on NASA television starting at 8 p.m.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision H of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/19 06:33 AM...03...12...30...Crew wakeup 08:03 AM...03...14...00...ISS daily planning conference 09:33 AM...03...15...30...SRMS grapples ICC VLD 09:53 AM...03...15...50...SRMS unberths ICC VLD 09:58 AM...03...15...55...EVA-2: Tools configured 10:43 AM...03...16...40...SRMS moves ICC VLD to handoff position 11:03 AM...03...17...00...SSRMS grapples ICC 11:53 AM...03...17...50...SSRMS moves ICC to POA 12:08 PM...03...18...05...EVA-2: Spacesuits reconfigured 12:30 PM...03...18...27...Mission status briefing 12:48 PM...03...18...45...SSRMS releases ICC 01:08 PM...03...19...05...Exercise device repair 01:38 PM...03...19...35...Logistics transfers 01:43 PM...03...19...40...EVA-2: Equipment lock preps 02:28 PM...03...20...25...Crew meals begin 06:08 PM...04...00...05...CSA PAO event 06:23 PM...04...00...20...EVA-2: Procedures review 07:48 PM...04...01...45...Evening planning conference 08:00 PM...04...01...57...Apollo 11 event on NTV 08:58 PM...04...02...55...EVA-3: Mask pre-breathe 09:38 PM...04...03...35...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 10:03 PM...04...04...00...ISS crew sleep begins 10:33 PM...04...04...30...STS crew sleep begins 11:00 PM...04...04...57...Daily highlights reel
12:40 AM, 7/19/09: Shuttle commander remembers Walter Cronkite
Shuttle commander Mark Polansky took a moment Saturday to remember CBS newsman Walter Cronkite. Talking to flight controllers before going to bed, Polansky said he wanted to "salute Mr. Cronkite and offer our best wishes and condolences to his family."
"On another note, before we go to bed, we noticed in the news uplink that a gentleman and a pioneer passed away, and that person, of course, was Walter Cronkite," Polansky radioed. "And we thought that we'd be remiss in not recognizing him for what he meant to a bunch of us who happened to grow up in the era where the early astronauts of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were going off.
"I certainly remember watching television and watching many an astronaut sitting next to him, providing commentary from a desk somewhere down in Florida. (Shuttle crewmate) Dave Wolf mentioned that he had the honor of sitting next to Walter when John Glenn went back up on his (shuttle) flight. And that inspired a lot of us.
"I think it's a tribute to him that at the time that we were in a space race back then that things are a lot different now in that we're part of a multi-national crew here with representatives of all five of the major partners of the international space station and we have 13 people here for the first time. So we did want to salute Mr. Cronkite and offer our best wishes and condolences to his family."
8:45 PM, 7/18/09: Heat shield inspection in final stages; no major problems found
NASA's Debris Analysis Team is in the final stages of reviewing launch and on-orbit photography of the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield. The ship's nose cap and wing leading edge panels have been cleared for entry as is and while 16 areas have been identified with minor tile damage, engineers have not seen anything that warrants repairs or additional inspections, a senior manager said Saturday.
Mike Moses, acting as chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team, said the DAT recommended Friday evening to forego any additional "focused" inspections of Endeavour's heat shield after examining hundreds of photos shot during Endeavour's approach to the station Friday.
"After the review they decided they did not need that additional data, which is a very good sign," Moses said. "We have not yet officially cleared the vehicle for entry, but having no focused inspection is a step down the path of saying we are going to be in really good shape.
"The reason we haven't officially cleared the vehicle for entry is, we had them focus on this focused inspection stuff first, the big things you think you might need more imagery on. But there are still a handful of minor things they need to go back and do the math, finish the analysis. ... We expect in the next day, maybe tomorrow, probably by Monday, we expect the thumbs up and to clear the vehicle for entry."
During Endeavour's approach to the space station Friday, commander Mark Polansky flew the orbiter threw a 360-degree flip maneuver, allowing the station astronauts to photograph the heat shield tiles on the ship's belly with high-resolution cameras. Sixteen areas of tile damage were noted, along with eight areas where defects were seen in spacers and thermal barriers between tiles.
Minor tile dings on the shuttle Endeavour's belly. (Photo: NASA TV)
Most of the tile dings were near the nose of the shuttle where foam debris from Endeavour's external tank impacted during launch Wednesday. Moses said one impact site featured a gouge 0.6 of an inch deep. The rest of the areas experienced coating damage only and none of them pose a threat to a safe re-entry.
"No real worries with any of these areas," Moses said.
Video from cameras mounted in the shuttle's twin-solid fuel boosters should be available for analysis by Sunday. Engineers are eager to examine the footage to better understand what caused an unusual amount of foam insulation to peel away from the central "intertank" area of the external tank during Endeavour's launch.
The major concern during ascent is debris that comes off in the first two minutes and 15 seconds of flight, when the shuttle is still in the dense lower atmosphere. During that period, lightweight pieces of foam can slow down so fast in the airstream that the shuttle can effectively run into them at a high enough relative velocity to cause heat shield damage.
During Endeavour's launching, most of the intertank foam that fell away was released after the period of aerodynamic vulnerability. But Moses said the mechanism is unknown and until engineers get a better understanding, they can't rule out the possibility the next tank in the sequence could shed foam earlier.
"Based on this flight, most of it came off late and so that says for this flight, that's why we didn't see a lot of damage," Moses said. "We aren't ready yet to say we're good and that we don't have a mechanism that would say it can't come off early. That's one of the big question marks we're going to have to answer as part of our flight rationale to be ready to fly the (next) tank, ET-132."
ET-132 currently is attached to a set of boosters at the Kennedy Space Center awaiting the shuttle Discovery and rollout to the pad for launch in late August. NASA originally planned to move Discovery to the Vehicle Assembly Building Monday, but the move is now on hold.
"One of the things we're going to do is go do pull tests on that tank," Moses said. "They're basically going to go cut inch-diameter size core samples and hook up a load cell to it and pull to see do we have a good bond to the metal primer underneath or not?
"We saw a fair amount of foam loss on the back side of (Endeavour's) external tank in that intertank region. You can almost see there were some areas in the crew hand-held video there's foam missing whereas in the umbilical well imagery, it's not missing. That says foam was still popping off even after (separation), which is yet another puzzling type mechanism. It's puzzling enough that foam's popping off so late without a lot of aerodynamic forces. It probably means it's thermally related, but again, we're starting to speculate."
Engineers at Lockheed Martin's Michoud Assembly Facility where the tanks are built are "looking at all that data, trying to find a common thread here that allows us to determine what that mechanism is and then based on that, do we have assurance that it can't come off earlier than that?" Moses said. "And that's really going to be the linchpin of our flight rationale."
6:10 PM, 7/18/09: Spacewalk No. 1 ends (UPDATED at 7:35 p.m. with exposed facility attachment to Kibo module)
Astronauts David Wolf and Timothy Kopra started repressurizing the space station's Quest airlock module at 5:51 p.m. EDT, officially ending a five-hour 32-minute spacewalk. The astronauts accomplished the primary goals of the excursion but ran a bit long and deferred deployment of a cargo mounting mechanism.
Today's spacewalk was the 126th devoted to station assembly since construction began in 1998, pushing total ISS spacewalk time to 785 hours and 38 minutes. It was the seventh station assembly EVA so far this year and the first of five planned by Endeavour's crew.
The Japanese Exposed Facility nearing the Kibo lab module.
(Photo: NASA TV)
While Wolf and Kopra were getting out of their suits, Koichia Wakata, operating the International Space Station's robot arm, was in the final stages of aligning the Japanese Exposed Facility experiment platform with the attachment mechanism on the Kibo laboratory module.
After a slow process to make sure the JEF attachment fittings were properly aligned with their counterparts on Kibo, the experiment platform was locked in place at 7:29 p.m., completing the primary objective of today's activity and one of the top priorities of Endeavour's mission.
A closeup showing the JEF/Kibo attachment mechanism.
(Photo: NASA TV)
5:00 PM, 7/18/09: Spacewalkers free jammed cargo mechanism
Spacewalkers David Wolf and Timothy Kopra used a custom-built tool to free a jammed cargo support mechanism on the space station's solar power truss, completing a task the crew of a shuttle mission in March was unable to accomplish.
The unpressurized cargo carrier attachment system, or UCCAS, on the port-3 truss segment is needed to mount spare parts and equipment later in the station's assembly. The mechanism was designed to swing into place from a folded configuration in the truss. But during an attempt to deploy it during the last station assembly mission, the mechanism jammed when a detent pin kept it from fully unfolding.
Engineers designed a special tool to force the pin to release and after a bit of work today, Wolf and Kopra successfully deployed the port UCCAS.
Tim Kopra's helmet cam view of Dave Wolf, inside the station truss,
working to free the jammed cargo carrier mechanism. (Photo: NASA TV)
"That was the right tool they built for that job, no doubt," Wolf said when the work was done.
"That was definitely the right tool," Kopra agreed.
"Yeah, that was outstanding," Cassidy called from inside the shuttle-station complex.
"I wish I could start saying names, but ... too many," Wolf said.
"They know who they are," Cassidy said.
Dave Wolf, inside the station's port truss segment.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Running about an hour behind schedule at that point, the crew decided to forego deployment of a similar cargo carrier on the right side of the power truss and to instead focus on a few "get-ahead" tasks before wrapping up today's spacewalk.
Astronauts Koichi Wakata, Douglas Hurley and Julie Payette, meanwhile, pressed ahead with work to move the Japanese Exposed Facility to its mounting point on the outboard end of the Kibo laboratory module.
Wakata and Hurley, operating the station's robot arm, pulled the platform out of Endeavour's cargo bay earlier today and handed it off to Payette, operating the shuttle's robot arm. The station arm then moved to work site No. 6 on the left side of the power truss before latching back onto the Japanese Exposed Facility.
The Japanese Exposed Facility, held by the shuttle's robot arm as
the station arm moves in to re-grapple. (Photo: NASA TV)
After the second handoff, Wakata planned to move the JEF into position for attachment to Kibo.
2:15 PM, 7/18/09: Japanese Exposed Facility pulled from shuttle cargo bay
Astronauts Koichi Wakata and shuttle pilot Douglas Hurley, operating the International Space Station's robot arm, carefully pulled a 4.1-ton experiment platform from Endeavour's payload bay today for attachment to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module.
The Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF, was prepped for unberthing by spacewalkers David Wolf and Timothy Kopra, who removed insulation and disconnected an electrical cable providing shuttle power to internal heaters. After retention latches were opened, Wakata and Hurley began the unberthing process just before 2 p.m.
The Japanese Exposed Facility being pulled from the
shuttle's cargo bay. (Photo: NASA TV)
To get the JEF from Endeavour's cargo bay to its attachment point on the outboard end of the Kibo module, Wakata and Hurley first must hand the platform off to the shuttle's robot arm, operated by Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. After repositioning the station arm at work site No. 6 on the left side of the station's main power truss, Wakata will re-grapple the JEF and move it into position for attachment to Kibo.
While that work is going on, Wolf and Kopra will be focusing on a variety of other tasks. Wolf will prepare an ammonia cooling system for future servicing and then reconfigure an astronaut equipment cart attached to the station arm's mobile transporter. Kopra, meanwhile, will move to the forward end of the lab complex to prepare a berthing system for use by a Japanese cargo ship in September.
Both spacewalkers then will attempt to deploy jammed cargo mounting hardware on the left side of the solar array truss. If time is available, they also will deploy a cargo mounting system on the right side of the truss.
There have been no problems of any significance so far, although a microphone problem is producing loud background static that occasionally makes it difficult to hear the spacewalkers.
12:25 PM, 7/18/09: Spacewalk No. 1 begins
Astronauts David Wolf and Timothy Kopra, floating in the space station's Quest airlock module, switched their spacesuits to battery power at 12:19 p.m. today to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk.
For identification, Wolf, call sign EV-1, is wearing a spacesuit with red stripes around the legs. Kopra, EV-2, is wearing an unmarked suit.
This is the 126th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year and the first of five planned by Endeavour's crew. It is the fifth spacewalk for Wolf and the first for Kopra.
The primary goals of today's excursion are to prepare the 4.1-ton Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF, for attachment to the station's Kibo laboratory module; to make preparations for the eventual arrival of a Japanese cargo ship; to adjust an external equipment cart; and to deploy a jammed spare parts mount on the station's solar array truss.
9:00 AM, 7/18/09: Astronauts gear up for spacewalk; focused heat shield inspection not required
Astronauts David Wolf and Timothy Kopra are preparing for a spacewalk today, the first of five planned by the Endeavour astronauts, to ready an experiment platform for attachment to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. Overnight, the astronauts were informed of the death of CBS newsman Walter Cronkite in statements from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Apollo 11 moonwalker Neil Armstrong that were included in the crew's daily package of updates and instructions.
"For a news analyst and reporter of the happenings of the day to be successful, he or she needs three things: accuracy, timeliness, and the trust of the audience," Armstrong said in a statement released Friday by NASA. "Many are fortunate to have the first two. The trust of the audience must be earned. Ê "Walter Cronkite seemed to enjoy the highest of ratings. He had a passion for human space exploration, an enthusiasm that was contagious, and the trust of his audience. He will be missed."
Bolden, a veteran shuttle commander confirmed Wednesday as NASA administrator, said "it was Walter Cronkite's impassioned reporting on America's inaugural moon landing that inspired me to join in the dreams of many to travel to space and accept the risks that this exploration brings while I was a student in naval flight training." Ê "For decades, we had the privilege of learning about our world from the original 'anchorman,'" Bolden said. "He was a true gentleman. Our thoughts and prayers are with Walter's family and his millions of friends and supporters."
Today's "execute package" beamed up to the crew also included an update on NASA's ongoing inspection and analysis of Endeavour's heat shield. The analysis is not yet complete, but after studying photographs of the shuttle's belly that were snapped by the space station crew during Endeavour's approach Friday, engineers concluded no major damage was present and an additional "focused" inspection will not be needed.
The astronauts were awakened at 7:03 a.m. today by a recording of Marc Broussard's "Home" beamed up from mission control.
"Good morning, Endeavour. Good morning, Dave," astronaut Shannon Lucid called from Houston.
"Take me home!" Wolf sang back. "Good morning, Shannon."
"Have a great EVA today," Lucid said.
"It's going to be something," Wolf replied. "This will be a heck of a day of teamwork between robots and people in space and all over the world. I'm looking forward to this! ... All's well in the airlock. We're up and cleaned up pretty good and things are moving along nicely and on time."
The spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 11:58 a.m. EDT. For identification, Wolf, call sign EV-1, will be wearing a spacesuit with red stripes around the legs. Kopra is EV-2 and will be wearing an unmarked suit.
This will be the 126th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year and the first of five planned by Endeavour's crew. It will be the fifth spacewalk for Wolf and the first for Kopra.
The primary goals of today's excursion are to prepare the 4.1-ton Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF, for attachment to the Kibo module; to make preparations for the eventual arrival of a Japanese cargo ship; to perform maintenance on an external equipment cart; and to deploy a jammed spare parts mount on the station's solar array truss.
"The complexity is not just from EVA. It's doing the EVA and robotics and the other internal transfer work that we have planned, all at once in a very complex choreography," Wolf said before launch. "It is busy, it is a sprint race for us and it's very interactive, it takes everyone (of the astronauts), mission control and the engineering teams to be with it real time, tracking as we go, to pull this off."
The Japanese Kibo laboratory is made up of two modules, a roomy central lab and an attached logistics module. The main Japanese lab module is equipped with its own airlock and its own robot arm to move experiments out to the exposed facility and back inside as needed. Experiment packages launched aboard Endeavour will be attached to the JEF later in the mission.
"The Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF as we tend to call it, is very impressive," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "It's a large external porch to the space station where high quality experiments can be conducted in the high vacuum of space. It's really an exceptionally valuable piece of real estate. It has its own robotic arm, the ability to do observations of the Earth and of the sky, astrophysics experiments, a very wide range of abilities."
After Wolf and Kopra prep the experiment platform, Koichi Wakata and shuttle pilot Douglas Hurley, operating the space station's robot arm, will pull it from Endeavour's cargo bay and hand it off to the shuttle arm, operated by Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. After moving to work site six on the station's solar power truss, the station arm will re-grapple the JEF and move it into position for attachment to Kibo. Flight controllers in Japan then will carry out the necessary activations.
"The highest priority item is to get the Japanese Exposed Facility, the JEF, out of the payload bay and that requires that the spacewalking crew disconnect umbilicals that are powering the payload now," said space station Flight Director Derek Hassmann. "So they'll spend about the first two hours of the EVA configuring the Japanese Exposed Facility for release from the payload bay.
"Then the spacewalking crew goes off to do other tasks on other parts of the station while the crew inside the space station uses both the shuttle robotic arm and the station's robotic arm in a series of handoffs to connect the Japanese Exposed Facility to the Kibo module."
The actual connection of the exposed facility is done robotically.
"In the case of U.S. modules, additional spacewalking activities are required to connect power, data and thermal umbilicals," Hassmann said. "In the case of the JEF, it's all robotic. Basically, the crew plugs it in with the robotic arm and those power and data and thermal connections are made automatically. Once those connections are made, later in the day the crew inside the space station works in concert with the flight control team in Japan to actually activate the Japanese Exposed Facility."
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision G of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/18 07:03 AM...02...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 07:43 AM...02...13...40...EVA-1: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 08:28 AM...02...14...25...EVA-1: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 08:53 AM...02...14...50...EVA-1: Campout EVA preps 09:03 AM...02...15...00...ISS daily planning conference 10:23 AM...02...16...20...EVA-1: Spacesuit purge 10:38 AM...02...16...35...SSRMS grapples JEF 10:38 AM...02...16...35...EVA-1: Spacesuit prebreathe 11:28 AM...02...17...25...EVA-1: Crew lock depressurization 11:58 AM...02...17...55...EVA-1: Spacesuits to battery power 12:03 PM...02...18...00...EVA-1: Airlock egress 12:13 PM...02...18...10...EVA-1: Setup 12:43 PM...02...18...40...EVA-1: EV1: JPM EFBM preps 12:43 PM...02...18...40...EVA-1: EV2: Payload bay prep 01:28 PM...02...19...25...EVA-1: EV1: CETA cart mods 01:43 PM...02...19...40...SSRMS unberths JEF; hands off to SRMS 01:58 PM...02...19...55...EVA-1: EV2: Z1 tool bax/CBCS flap 02:13 PM...02...20...10...EVA-1: P3 nadir UCCAS deploy 02:28 PM...02...20...25...EVA-1: EV2: P3 nadir UCCAS deploy 02:53 PM...02...20...50...SSRMS releases JEF 03:08 PM...02...21...05...SSRMS grapples PDGF 3 04:23 PM...02...22...20...SSRMS releases node 2 04:43 PM...02...22...40...EVA-1: EV1: S3 zenith outboard PAS 04:43 PM...02...22...40...EVA-1: EV2: Get aheads 05:08 PM...02...23...05...SSRMS regrapples JEF 05:38 PM...02...23...35...SSRMS attaches JEF to Kibo 05:43 PM...02...23...40...EVA-1: Cleanup and ingress 06:28 PM...03...00...25...EVA-1: Airlock pressurization 06:28 PM...03...00...25...EFBM ops 06:38 PM...03...00...35...Spacesuit servicing 07:23 PM...03...01...20...SSRMS releases JEF 07:30 PM...03...01...27...Post-MMT briefing 07:48 PM...03...01...45...ISS evening planning conference 09:00 PM...03...02...57...Mission status briefing 10:03 PM...03...04...00...ISS crew sleep begins 10:33 PM...03...04...30...STS crew sleep begins 11:00 PM...03...04...57...Daily highlights reel on NTV
"The time critical task that Tim and I will do on the first spacewalk of the mission, day four, is to get that exposed facility, the Japanese JEF exposed facility, ready to be unberthed robotically out of the payload bay," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "This is a choreography between the spacewalk crew, of course the ground and the robotics arm operators.
"We have several tasks that reconfigure cabling and power out in the space shuttle payload bay so that (the exposed facility) is able to be raised out and then attached to the space station. We're also standing by in case there's several, any of a group of problems that could occur attaching JEF to the Japanese module.
"In between there we'll be doing a wide range of tasks over on the space station while the robotics is carrying this JEF facility from the shuttle to the space station."
6:45 PM, 7/17/09: No additional tile damage seen during shuttle flip; nose cap, wing leading edge panels cleared; debris avoidance maneuver planned
While the analysis is not yet complete, a quick look at photographs shot during the shuttle Endeavour's dramatic pitch-around maneuver during final approach to the space station today show the orbiter's heat shield appears to be in good condition with no obvious signs of damage beyond two areas of coating loss spotted during launch Wednesday.
"The video from the docking and the RPM maneuver was stunning as always," said John Shannon, the shuttle program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "All of the photographs that the ISS crew took of the underside of Endeavour are in the process of being downlinked, I think we have all them on the ground, they're being reviewed.
"It's kind of funny, the only damage we see to the tiles on the vehicle is what we saw during the ascent from the LO2 feedline camera," he said. "The underside looked completely clean except for the three little spots we had from that first foam loss and that little line of, it looks like, tile top coat that was abraded off by the second foam (impact). So we didn't see anything down by the ET doors, or on the elevons or really anywhere else.
"The team is actively looking at those photographs of that chine area (where the known damage is located)," Shannon said. "It did not look (to be) of very big concern at all."
While Shannon was briefing reporters, the Endeavour astronauts were gearing up for a rocket firing to boost the shuttle-space station complex about a mile to avoid a piece of space debris that might otherwise have passed too close for comfort.
"We definitely will need to do a reboost," Janice Voss radioed from Houston. "We are expecting about two-and-a-half feet per second posigrade (rocket firing) and about 15 minutes reboost duration."
Lead Flight Director Paul Dye said he did not know how large the debris might be or what spacecraft might have been the source. Its catalog number is 84180.
Engineers will continue the heat shield photo analysis overnight and make a recommendation Saturday as to whether an additional, "focused" inspection might be needed later to collect additional data.
In another bit of good news for commander Mark Polansky and his shuttle crewmates, Shannon said engineers had completed an assessment of Endeavour's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels, which experience the most extreme re-entry heating, and had not found any areas of concern.
"There were no issues at all with any of the wing leading edge panels or the nose cap," he said.
Endeavour's two solid-fuel boosters are being towed back to Cape Canaveral for disassembly and inspection. Shannon said cameras in each booster will be removed Saturday evening and engineers hope to begin reviewing the footage Sunday.
The booster cameras are expected to shed light on the unusual loss of foam insulation from the central "intertank" area of Endeavour's external tank, which suffered multiple losses during Endeavour's climb to space. While most of the intertank foam came off after the shuttle was out of the dense lower atmosphere, where it poses the greatest impact threat to the shuttle's heat shield, engineers want to understand what caused the unusual shedding.
The foam that caused the presumably minor damage in the two areas seen during launch Wednesday came off the tank right beside the 17-inch-wide liquid oxygen feed line that emerges from the side of the intertank. While that foam released earlier than the bulk of the intertank debris, Shannon said the same mechanism may be responsible.
Shannon said two teams are looking into the matter, one focused on what happened to Endeavour's tank and the other looking into what might be needed to ensure the next tank in the launch sequence is safe to fly.
External tank No. 132 is scheduled for use by the shuttle Discovery in late August and engineers are planning "pull" tests to measure how tightly bonded its intertank foam is to the underlying metal. Shannon said depending on what the tests show, the tank could be launched as is, repaired or taken off line and replaced by a follow-on tank.
Because the intertank foam separated relatively late in the ascent, it does not appear to represent the sort of impact threat that might suggest sweeping changes. But Shannon said it's too soon to say what impact, if any, the work might have on Discovery's launch campaign.
"We're still putting the plan together to go and do the plug pulls to ensure we have the proper adhesion," he said. "This is not dissimilar from previous work we've done when we've seen foam losses on other tanks. Right now, my expectation is this will not affect a late August launch of STS-128."
But NASA has delayed Discovery's move to the Vehicle Assembly Building for attachment to ET-132 and a set of boosters from Monday to next Friday to allow more time for testing. NASA's internal launch target remains Aug. 18, but that date already was in conflict with a Delta rocket launch and regardless of the upcoming testing, Discovery's flight likely will slip a few days.
2:30 PM, 7/17/09: Shuttle docks with space station (UPDATED at 4:40 p.m. with hatch opening; welcome ceremony)
Manually flying the shuttle Endeavour from the aft flight deck, commander Mark Polansky guided the 120-ton orbiter to a gentle docking with the International Space Station today as the two spacecraft sailed 220 miles above northern Australia at five miles per second.
With Endeavour's arrival, the space station now boasts a record combined crew of 13 - six full-time station crew members and seven shuttle astronauts. One of them, Timothy Kopra, will officially join the Expedition 20 crew later today, replacing outgoing flight engineer Koichi Wakata.
The combined crews of the shuttle Endeavour and the International
Space Station greet each other in the Harmony module.
(Photo: NASA TV)
"The crew is very happy to welcome Endeavour's crew on board space station," station commander Gennady Padalka said. "It's a remarkable event, not only for us but for the whole space program because this is the next great stage of space station assembly. Right now, we've got together 13 people on board space station. Welcome."
"Thank you, Gennady," Polansky replied. "The crew of STS-127 is extremely happy to be here. Thirteen is a pretty big number, but it's going to be an outstanding visit for us. We're happy to go ahead and deliver Col. Kopra to his new home for a while, and maybe Koichi is looking forward to a hot shower back home. We'll make this short because we have a lot of work to do, but we are just thrilled to be here. Thank you."
Running a few minutes ahead of schedule, Polansky guided Endeavour to a smooth docking at the front end of the space station at 1:47 p.m. EDT.
"Docked successfully w/ISS a few minutes ago," Polansky said in a Twitter message downlinked to the internet. "It will take awhile before we can open the hatches, but itÕs great to be here."
Two hours later, after leak checks to ensure a tight seal, a final hatch between the shuttle and the station was opened at 3:48 p.m.
The shuttle Endeavour, docked with the International Space Station.
(Photo: NASA TV)
After ringing the ship's bell in the Harmony module, Padalka and his crewmates - Wakata, NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk - welcomed the shuttle astronauts aboard.
Polansky, Kopra, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn then floated into the Harmony module for enthusiastic hugs and handshakes, creating an unfamiliar traffic jam as all 13 mingled in weightlessness.
After a safety briefing from the station crew, the astronauts went their separate ways, beginning work to transfer equipment from the shuttle to the space station, including spacesuits and tools for a spacewalk Saturday, the first of five planned for Endeavour's mission.
Engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, meanwhile, are continuing their assessment of launch and on-orbit imagery to determine the health of Endeavour's heat shield.
Before docking, with the shuttle about 600 feet directly below the space station, Polansky guided the orbiter through a 360-degree nine-minute back flip as the two spacecraft crossed the Atlantic Ocean, allowing the lab crew to photograph the orbiter's protective heat shield with 400-mm and 800-mm telephoto lenses.
The shuttle Endeavour's belly, as seen by a TV camera on the
International Space Station. (Photo: NASA TV)
There were no obvious signs of ascent impact damage seen in spectacular downlinked television views from the station, but it will take engineers at Johnson a day or more to analyze the 300 or so digital images shot by Padalka and Barratt.
Endeavour's external tank lost an unusual amount of foam insulation from its central "intertank" region during the climb to space, creating debris that struck the shuttle in at least two areas during the period when the shuttle is must vulnerable to impact damage.
Engineers do not believe the damage seen Wednesday is serious, but as with all post-Columbia shuttle missions, NASA managers will not give the ship a clean bill of health until the ongoing analysis is complete.
The shuttle Endeavour, carrying an experiment platform for the
Japanese Kibo module (foreground) before docking Friday.
(Photo: NASA TV)
07:20 AM, 7/17/09: Astronauts close in on space station
The Endeavour astronauts are closing in on the International Space Station today in the final stages of a rendezvous that began with liftoff Wednesday. The terminal phase of the rendezvous will begin at 11:17 a.m. Ewith a rocket firing to close the final 9.2 miles, setting up a docking at 1:55 p.m.
As with all post-Columbia station visits, commander Mark Polansky will position Endeavour 600 feet directly below the space station before beginning the final approach, guiding the shuttle through a slow back flip to expose the orbiter's belly to the station crew.
Using digital cameras equipped with 400 mm and 800 mm telephoto lenses, the station astronauts will photograph the protective tiles on the shuttle's belly to help engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston assess the health of the orbiter's heat shield.
Endeavour's external tank lost an unusual amount of foam insulation from its central "intertank" region during launch Wednesday, creating debris that struck the shuttle in at least two areas. Engineers do not believe the damage is serious, but the inspection later today will determine if there are any other areas of interest.
"Rendezvous is a busy day because besides the rendezvous, there's a spacewalk the next day," Polansky said in a NASA interview. "So what we'll wind up doing is we'll get up, we'll immediately do what we call a 'water dump' because our fuel cells, which generate our electricity, produce a lot of excess water. When we are docked to station, we are limited in the kind of water dumps that we can do because it might impinge upon the equipment up there so we need to go ahead and get a last water dump done. We'll do that early in the day.
"We'll do a series of what we call 'burns' to adjust our position in space so that we set ourselves up for a rendezvous. We'll go ahead then and manually fly the rendezvous. There's a team of four of us that work most of the flying and then other crew members come up to help with the docking system as well as taking some photography as we come on board.
"We'll dock, make sure that's everything's okay, get a good leak check of the area that we've docked to - to make sure that everything's working properly - and at that point, we'll finally open the hatches, the traditional meet and greet. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of emotion as you see your friends up there and it's always an exciting time to do that.
"And then after about five minutes of 'boy, this is really cool!' back to work. So now it's time to get the safety briefing to make sure that as we're docked everybody knows exactly what the layout is because we're not back in Houston and Building 9 in our little simulators any more. We're in a real living, breathing space station and, should anything go wrong, everybody needs to know immediately what they're supposed to do, where the fire bottles are, things like that.
"So we'll get a good safety brief and then we have (robotic arm work) right away for some of the folks. We have other folks taking equipment to the airlock, and people are going to do what we call 'camp out' that very night, where they're going to go and start pre-breathing oxygen, get themselves pressurized down to a 10.2 psi within their little airlock and get ready for the next day's spacewalk."
The goals of Endeavour's mission are to attach an experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo module, to replace aging solar array batteries and to transfer spare parts and supplies to the station. Astronaut Tim Kopra will join the station crew after docking and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will join Endeavour's crew for the trip back to Earth at the end of the mission.
Five spacewalks are planned, with the first on tap Saturday beginning at 11:58 a.m.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision E of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 07/17 07:03 AM...01...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 08:08 AM...01...14...05...Group B computer powerup 08:18 AM...01...14...15...ISS daily planning conference 08:23 AM...01...14...20...Rendezvous timeline begins 09:42 AM...01...15...39...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 10:08 AM...01...16...05...Spacesuits removed from airlock 11:17 AM...01...17...14...TI burn 11:53 AM...01...17...50...Sunset 12:10 PM...01...18...07...ISS in attitude 12:15 PM...01...18...12...Range: 10,000 feet 12:24 PM...01...18...21...Range: 5,000 feet 12:26 PM...01...18...23...Sunrise 12:30 PM...01...18...27...Range: 3,000 feet 12:34 PM...01...18...31...MC-4 rendezvous burn 12:38 PM...01...18...35...Range: 1,500 feet 12:40 PM...01...18...37...RPM start window open 12:43 PM...01...18...40...Range: 1,000 feet 12:46 PM...01...18...43...KU antenna to low power 12:47 PM...01...18...44...+R bar arrival directly below ISS 12:52 PM...01...18...49...Range: 600 feet 12:54 PM...01...18...51...Start pitch maneuver 12:55 PM...01...18...52...Noon 01:02 PM...01...18...59...End pitch maneuver 01:03 PM...01...19...00...RPM full photo window close 01:04 PM...01...19...01...Initiate pitch up maneuver (575 ft) 01:11 PM...01...19...08...RPM start window close 01:16 PM...01...19...13...+V bar arrival; range: 310 feet 01:17 PM...01...19...14...Range: 300 feet 01:21 PM...01...19...18...Range: 250 feet 01:24 PM...01...19...21...Sunset 01:25 PM...01...19...22...Range: 200 feet 01:28 PM...01...19...25...Range: 170 feet 01:29 PM...01...19...26...Range: 150 feet 01:33 PM...01...19...30...Range: 100 feet 01:36 PM...01...19...33...Range: 75 feet 01:41 PM...01...19...38...Range: 50 feet 01:44 PM...01...19...41...Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 01:49 PM...01...19...46...End stationkeeping; push to dock 01:53 PM...01...19...50...Range: 10 feet 01:55 PM...01...19...52...DOCKING 01:58 PM...01...19...55...Sunrise 02:08 PM...01...20...05...Leak checks 02:08 PM...01...20...05...Post docking laptop reconfig 02:28 PM...01...20...25...Group B computer powerdown 02:38 PM...01...20...35...Orbiter docking system prepped for ingress 02:58 PM...01...20...55...Hatch open 03:43 PM...01...21...40...Welcome aboard! 03:48 PM...01...21...45...Safety briefing 04:18 PM...01...22...15...Spacesuits transferred to ISS 04:18 PM...01...22...15...Soyuz seatliner transfer/installation 04:53 PM...01...22...50...REBA checkout 04:48 PM...01...22...45...EVA-1: Tools configured 05:28 PM...01...23...25...Playback ops 05:30 PM...01...23...27...Mission status/post-MMT briefing 06:13 PM...02...00...10...Equipment lock preps 06:48 PM...02...00...45...ISS: Sokol suit leak checks 06:58 PM...02...00...55...EVA-1: Procedures review 08:03 PM...02...02...00...ISS: Sokol suit drying 08:03 PM...02...02...00...ISS evening planning conference 09:28 PM...02...03...25...EVA-1: Mask pre-breathe 10:33 PM...02...04...30...ISS crew sleep begins 10:08 PM...02...04...05...EVA-1: 10.2 airlock depress 11:03 PM...02...05...00...STS crew sleep begins
07:00 PM, 7/16/09: Multiple strips of foam insulation missing from central section of external tank in post-launch photography; unknown mechanism responsible; NASA managers not overly concerned about shuttle tile damage
Post-launch photography of the shuttle Endeavour's external tank shows multiple areas of bare metal where thin strips of foam insulation peeled away during the climb to space, the result of an as-yet-unknown mechanism. In at least two "events," debris hit Endeavour's heat shield tiles during the early stages of flight when the shuttle is most vulnerable to damage. But mission managers said Thursday there is no evidence of any serious problems that would prevent a safe re-entry.
"There is nothing that we have seen on the orbiter that causes us any concern," said shuttle Program Manager John Shannon. "Of course, since this looks like a new mechanism of shedding foam off the intertank, we need to understand that. It did not hurt us, apparently, on this flight, because it came off so late. But we'll need to understand that before the next flight."
The shuttle Discovery is scheduled for launch around Aug. 18, but it's too early to say what impact, if any, additional testing might have on that flight.
Endeavour blasted off on a space station assembly mission Wednesday evening. A camera mounted on the side of the shuttle's external tank showed multiple instances of foam insulation falling away. In several cases, a larger piece of debris disintegrated in a cloud of fragments after hitting the supersonic airstream.
Debris impacts are most troublesome in the first two minutes and 15 seconds of flight when the shuttle is still in the dense lower regions of the atmosphere. When lightweight foam hits the airstream in that region of flight, it instantly slows down and the shuttle can run into it at a high relative velocity. After 135 seconds, however, atmospheric density drops to the point where debris tends to continue moving with the shuttle and impact velocities are much lower.
A large piece of foam hit the shuttle Columbia's left wing 82 seconds after launch in 2003, blasting a hole in the wing leading edge and triggering a catastrophic failure during re-entry Feb. 1, 2003.
Since then, NASA has redesigned the way foam is applied to the tank to minimize "shedding" and to prevent large pieces from breaking away. In recent flights, tanks have performed well and shuttle heat shield damage has been minimal to non-existent. During the most recent flight in May, however, foam debris gouged the top layer of several tiles under the forward part of the ship's right wing. The damage was not serious enough to warrant repairs and Atlantis made a safe re-entry.
This time around, engineers were surprised by the amount of debris and its source: the so-called "intertank," the ribbed section of the external tank that separates the hydrogen and oxygen sections and provides the structural backbone needed for launch.
Of a dozen or so debris events, two were in the aerodynamically sensitive time frame. One such debris event occurred at one minute and 47 seconds into flight, resulting in impacts that eroded the black outer coating on heat shield tiles in three areas. Another event eight seconds later produced another area of erosion.The erosion noted in both impacts appears less severe than the damage seen during Atlantis' flight in May.
"The foam loss that we saw was mostly in that intertank area," Shannon said of Endeavour's foam loss. "That's a little bit of a surprise to us because it does not undergo much deflection because it is so structurally strong. It also does not experience the extreme (low) temperatures you get in the liquid hydrogen tank. So we don't typically expect to see large losses in that intertank area."
Normally, engineers notice a phenomenon known as "popcorning" on the intertank foam, in which "you have small air bubbles in that area and in the heating of ascent they'll expand and pop off," Shannon said. "Usually, that's in the two-and-a-half to three-minute timeframe on the flight."
"What we saw here, though, was strips of the foam covering the intertank structure ... it just kind of peeled off the primer layer of the metal and you can actually see the metal underneath it," he said. "It's not thick foam at all. The foam is about a half an inch thick, so it kind of came off in little sheets in about seven or eight different areas. We don't understand why that happened. It looks like the base primer just was not holding onto the foam well."
At least 10 areas of foam loss can be seen in the intertank area on the side facing the shuttle with another five possible areas on the opposite side. In addition, engineers noticed two areas of foam loss high up on the oxygen section of the tank where a pressurization line is attached.
"We're right in the middle of our normal inspection process," Shannon said. "We have a bit of a mystery on the external tank foam loss. It's from an area we don't typically expect to see foam to be lost and we'll go off and work on that."
The Endeavour astronauts spent most of the day Thursday carrying out a now-routine inspection of the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels using a laser scanner and cameras mounted on the end of a 50-foot-boom attached to the shuttle's robot arm.
No obvious problems were seen, but data analysis will take several days to complete.
During final approach to the International Space Station on Friday, commander Mark Polansky will guide the shuttle through a slow back flip, exposing the belly of the orbiter to cameras aboard the space station. Any damage caused by debris strikes should be easily visible for detailed analysis.
"We're right in the middle of our typical assessment of the health of the thermal protection system," Shannon said. "Nobody on the Mission Management Team saw any reason to indict the vehicle. If we had some kind of a contingency, we would feel perfectly comfortable bringing this vehicle back. But barring that, we will do our normal process of assessment."
Back at the Kennedy Space Center, engineers plan to haul the shuttle Discovery from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Monday to attach it to an external tank and boosters for launch around Aug. 18. Shannon said engineers are now planning to carry out a series of tests on ET-132 to find out if there are any obvious problems with the foam in the intertank region.
Along with doing so-called "plug-pull" tests that measure how hard it is to pull foam away from the underlying metal, engineers also are discussing X-ray analysis to determine if there are any defects that might lead to similar shedding in August.
"It looks like it just completely peeled off and that we did not have good adhesion between the primer undercoat and the foam itself," Shannon said. "We have a ton of data, of course, on the external tanks, we'll look at all of the plug-pull data, we'll look at any X-ray data we've got in that area, we'll X-ray ET-132 and probably we'll end up X-raying every one of the tanks to see if there's anything else we can find out. We have a lot of data review and investigation to go perform."
8:40 AM, 7/16/09: Shuttle astronauts gear up for heat shield inspections; prep for docking Friday
The Endeavour astronauts, awakened at 8:03 a.m. EDT, are working through a routine-but-busy day in orbit today, gearing up to inspect the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels to make sure no impact damage occurred during launch Wednesday. They also will check out the spacesuits needed for five space station assembly spacewalks and set up rendezvous tools for use during final approach to the lab complex Friday afternoon.
Two rendezvous rocket firings are planned to fine-tune Endeavour's approach to the space station, part of a carefully choreographed sequence of maneuvers setting the stage for docking around 1:55 p.m. Friday.
Using Endeavour's 50-foot-long robot arm, the astronauts will lock onto the shuttle's 50-foot orbiter boom sensor system, or OBSS, and work through a complex sequences of movements to inspect the right wing's leading edge panels, the nose cap and then the left wing's RCC panels using a laser scanner and camera system. The inspection is scheduled to begin around 12:40 p.m.
The reinforced carbon carbon leading edge panels and nose cap experience the most extreme heating during re-entry and data collected today will help engineers assess the health of the critical systems. During launch Wednesday, multiple debris events were seen, including at least two external tank foam insulation impacts that appeared to damage several heat shield tiles.
Before going to bed Wednesday night, the crew beamed down hand-held video of the external tank after separation from Endeavour, but it was not clear to the untrained eye where the insulation seen falling from the tank earlier might have originated.
In any case, there were no clear indications of any debris hitting the critical wing leading edge panels. The tile damage seen during launch was on the belly of the shuttle and may not be seen during today's inspections. The belly tiles will be photographed by the station crew during final approach Friday.
Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision E of the NASA television schedule):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT Thursday, July 16 08:03 AM...00...14...00...Crew wakeup 09:43 AM...00...15...40...OMS pod survey 10:54 AM...00...16...51...NC-2 rendezvous rocket firing 11:00 AM...00...16...57...News briefing on restored Apollo video 11:18 AM...00...17...15...Laptop computer setup (part 2) 11:23 AM...00...17...20...SRMS unberths OBSS 11:33 AM...00...17...30...Ergometer setup 12:18 PM...00...18...15...Spacesuit checkout preps 12:38 PM...00...18...35...OBSS starboard wing survey 12:58 PM...00...18...55...Spacesuit checkout 01:00 PM...00...18...57...Apollo 11 roundtable on NTV 02:33 PM...00...20...30...OBSS nose cap survey 02:48 PM...00...20...45...Spacesuit prepped for transfer to station 03:23 PM...00...21...20...Crew meals begin 04:23 PM...00...22...20...OBSS port wing survey 05:00 PM...00...22...57...Mission status/post-MMT briefing 06:23 PM...01...00...20...SRMS berths OBSS 07:23 PM...01...01...20...Centerline camera setup 07:23 PM...01...01...20...LDRI downlink 07:38 PM...01...01...35...Orbiter docking system ring extension 07:53 PM...01...01...50...Rendezvous tools checkout 08:31 PM...01...02...28...NC-3 rendezvous rocket firing 11:03 PM...01...05...00...Crew sleep begins 12:00 AM...01...05...57...Daily video highlights reel Friday, July 17 07:03 AM...01...13...00...Crew wakeup
5:29 PM, 7/15/09: Shuttle Endeavour blasts off on sixth try; external tank foam debris events noted (UPDATED at 8:50 with quotes from post-launch news conference; debris strike details)
Running a month late because of hydrogen leaks and stormy weather, the shuttle Endeavour finally roared to life and blasted off Wednesday on its sixth try, rocketing away through a hazy sky toward a Friday rendezvous with the International Space Station.
Multiple pieces of foam insulation fell from the ship's external tank during the early moments of flight, but it was not immediately clear whether the shuttle's fragile heat shield suffered any significant damage.
The shuttle Endeavour climbs away from pad 39A Wednesday.
(Photo: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now)
With commander Mark Polansky and pilot Douglas Hurley at the controls, Endeavour's three main engines ignited in staggered sequence and throttled up to full thrust, followed seconds later by ignition of the shuttle's twin solid-fuel boosters at 6:03:10 p.m. EDT.
Belching fire and churning clouds of exhaust, Endeavour quickly thundered away from launch pad 39A atop twin pillars of 5,000-degree flame from its powerful boosters, rotated about its vertical axis and arced away to the northeast.
A television camera mounted on the side of the shuttle's external tank provided spectacular views of the Kennedy Space Center launch complex dropping away below and then the separation of the shuttle's twin boosters two minutes and five seconds into the flight.
Several pieces of debris, presumably foam insulation from the tank, ice or both, fell away during the climb out of the lower atmosphere, including some that appeared to hit the orbiter's heat shield well before booster separation. Additional debris events were seen as the shuttle continued its climb out of the discernible atmosphere.
"At about 107 seconds during ascent, we did see some debris events," astronaut Alan Poindexter called the crew from mission control. He said impacts were observed on the underside of the forward part of the right wing, similar to, but less severe than, damage that occurred during a May shuttle launch.
"It appeared to impact the starboard chine area," Poindexter said. "The impact appears to be less than what we experienced on (the last mission) and we'll certainly take a look at this throughout the evening and through the day tomorrow."
"Thanks for the info, I'm sure we'll get a good chance for all of us to get a good look at all that" during post-launch inspections Thursday, Polansky replied. "We can't thank you enough for getting us this far. It was a pretty decent wait, but we're thrilled to be here."
A cloud of debris, presumably foam fragments of insulation
from the shuttle's external tank, is visible to the left of the shuttle
in this camera view. (Photo: NASA TV)
Debris impacts are not an issue after about two-and-a-half minutes, when the shuttle is out of the dense lower atmosphere. But several of the impacts observed during Endeavour's launch occurred during the period when debris strikes are more likely to cause damage.
"If it happened right away, the relative speed of the vehicle's not that great," said Mike Moses, director of shuttle launch integration at the Kennedy Space Center. "And then, once you get out of the atmosphere, if something comes off it kind of stays at the same speed as you when it hits you, so the relative speed is not that great.
"But there's a chunk of time where you're still in the thicker part of the atmosphere where a piece of foam comes off and effectively stops and we fly into it and hit it very fast," he said. "It's not just atmosphere, but that's basically what the phenomenon is."
Debris is not unexpected during launch, but the number of events seen during Endeavour's ascent was unusual. Reporters going through video footage frame by frame counted at least 15 debris events between liftoff and two minutes and 20 seconds into flight.
But Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of space operations at NASA headquarters, cautioned that lighting may have played a role in initial impressions.
"We had very good lighting today, so we probably saw the tank much better than we have on several of the past flights when they were evening launches," he said.
As with all shuttle launchings, engineers will need several days to evaluate launch and on-orbit imagery to make sure there are no problems.
"The bottom line is, we saw some stuff, some of it doesn't concern us, some of it you really just can't speculate on right now," Moses said. "We have the tools and processes to go clear this vehicle for entry. You'll know as we know what we find when we do (the inspections). No real worries there, we've just got to wait and see what happens."
The astronauts plan to spend their second day in orbit Thursday checking out their spacesuits, rendezvous tools and inspecting the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels using a laser scanner on the end of a 50-foot-long boom attached to Endeavour's robot arm.
If all goes well, Polansky will guide Endeavour to a docking with the International Space Station Friday afternoon. During final approach, the station astronauts, using cameras with powerful telephoto lenses, will photograph the heat shield tiles on the shuttle's belly to look for any signs of damage.
The primary goals of the 16-day mission include attachment of an experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo lab module, replacement of aging solar array batteries and delivery of critical spare parts and components, hedges against failures after the shuttle is retired next year.
Five spacewalks by four astronauts will be required, along with carefully choreographed, near daily use of three robot arms, two on the station and one aboard the space shuttle, to move equipment, spare parts, experiments and spacewalkers from one work site to another.
Complicating the choreography, the station must host a combined crew of 13 - six full-time station astronauts and seven shuttle visitors - for the first time, putting the lab's life support systems, including its new water recycling system, toilets, oxygen generators, and carbon dioxide scrubbers, to the test.
"It's like having your family descend on you for the holidays, right? And they're going to stay for a very long time. And they come, and they're bringing all their stuff," Moses said before launch.
But he said the combined crews are "more than ready" for the challenge, adding that with six full-time station astronauts on board, "I think what we're going to see is probably some unprecedented efficiencies" because "they know where to go, they know what the procedures are, they know how to get things done."
Polansky and his crewmates had hoped to blast off June 11, but the flight was delayed June 13 and 17 by a leaking hydrogen vent line and then three times in a row Saturday, Sunday and Monday by stormy weather over the Kennedy Space Center.
Electrical storms developed near the space center again early today, but conditions improved as the afternoon wore on and Endeavour finally was cleared for launch.
"Well Roman, the vehicle's ready, the support teams are definitely ready and the weather's finally cooperating, so It is now time to fly," Launch Director Pete Nickolenko radioed Endeavour. "Persistence pays off. Good luck and Godspeed.
"Pete, thanks to you and everyone who's worked so hard for this moment," Polansky replied. "Endeavour's patiently waited for this, we're ready to go and we're going to take all of you with us on a great mission. Thanks a lot."
The only technical issue today was concern about the performance of fuel cell No. 3, one of three compact powerplants that combine oxygen and hydrogen to generate the shuttle's electricity. Fresh water is produced as a by-product of the reaction.
Engineers are hopeful fuel cell No. 3 will operate normally throughout the mission, but there is a chance it could have problems at the low power levels required when the shuttle is plugged into the space station's solar power system after docking.
For the Endeavour astronauts, shuttle mission STS-127 is the equivalent of a "heavy duty construction mission," said flight engineer Julie Payette, a Canadian astronaut, jet pilot, and robot arm operator. "It is about as complex a mission as we've put together so far in the joint shuttle-space station program."
"With the shuttle program ending in 2010, we had to pack the mission as much as we could. So our mission is probably reaching the limits of what one crew can do on a 16-day mission: five different spacewalks, we're basically operating at least two (robot) arms every day of the mission except for one, it is extremely intensive in the choreography that we do.
"But it is a construction mission," said Payette, making her second shuttle flight. "We are crane operators, we're construction workers, we're going to replace elements of the station, install new elements on the station, transfer equipment inside the station, we're going to disturb life for two weeks, and then we're going to go home."
Joining Payette on the shuttle's upper flight deck for launch were Polansky, making his third flight, rookie pilot Hurley and first-time flier Christopher Cassidy, a Navy SEAL with combat experience in the caves of Afghanistan. Based on seat positions, Hurley was the 499th individual to reach orbit and Cassidy was the 500th.
Strapped in on the lower deck were David Wolf, a doctor making his fourth flight, physician-astronaut Thomas Marshburn, and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra, both making their first flights.
Kopra, an Army helicopter pilot, will trade places with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata as a member of the Expedition 20 crew, remaining behind aboard the International Space Station when Endeavour departs. Wakata, launched to the station in March aboard the shuttle Discovery, will take Kopra's place aboard the shuttle for the trip back to Earth.
The Japanese Kibo laboratory is made up of two modules, a roomy central lab and an attached logistics module. Endeavour's crew is delivering a porch-like external platform called the Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF, and three experiment packages.
The main Japanese lab module is equipped with its own airlock and its own robot arm to move experiments out to the exposed facility and back inside as needed.
"The Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF as we tend to call it, is very impressive," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "It's a large external porch to the space station where high quality experiments can be conducted in the high vacuum of space. It's really an exceptionally valuable piece of real estate. It has its own robotic arm, the ability to do observations of the Earth and of the sky, astrophysics experiments, a very wide range of abilities."
Protecting against failures down the road, the astronauts also plan to mount a spare S-band antenna assembly on an external storage platform, along with a spare cooling system pump module and a replacement drive unit for the station's robot arm transporter.
In one of the more challenging tasks faced by the spacewalkers, six 375-pound batteries will be replaced in the station's oldest set of solar arrays on the far left end of the lab's main power truss. The battery replacement will be spread over two spacewalks.
"The P6 batteries have been up there since December of 2000," said Kirk Shireman, deputy director of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center. "They're reaching the end of their life (and) we need to swap them out. We'll be doing that for the first time, it's very challenging."
The spacewalkers also will attempt to rewire a gyroscope circuit, install another television camera to provide additional external views, and deploy a jammed external storage mount on the left side of the power truss. The crew plans to deploy two others on the right side of the station that are needed to hold spare parts and equipment being stockpiled as the shuttle program winds down toward retirement in 2010.
Finally, the astronauts will make preparations for the debut flight of a Japanese cargo ship in September. The HTV spacecraft is designed to be plucked out of open space by the station's robot arm for docking to the Harmony module's upper port.
If all goes well, Endeavour will undock from the space station July 28 and return to the Kennedy Space Center on July 31.
2:55 PM, 7/15/09: Astronauts strap in for launch; forecasters cautiously optimistic
The shuttle Endeavour's seven-member crew donned bright-orange pressure suits, headed to launch pad 39A and began strapping in around 2:45 p.m. EDT to await launch on a delayed space station assembly mission. Liftoff remains targeted for 6:03:10 p.m.
Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra appeared relaxed and in good spirits despite five previous delays. Cassidy wore a turned-up "rally hat" before climbing aboard.
The Endeavour astronauts depart crew quarters and head to me pad.
(Photo: NASA TV)
There are no technical problems at pad 39A and forecasters are cautiously optimistic the afternoon sea breeze will keep developing storms away from the Kennedy Space Center as the day wears on.
Engineers are monitoring one of the shuttle's three electricity-producing fuel cells, which shows subtle indications of slightly "off-nominal" performance at low-power levels. It is not an issue for launch, but it could cause problems after Endeavour docks with the station and plugs into the lab's solar power system.
Engineers are hopeful the powerplant will operate normally throughout the mission, but they might not know for sure until after docking.
11:45 AM, 7/15/09: Shuttle fueling complete; no leaks in vent line; MMT plans meeting to discuss fuel cell issue
The shuttle Endeavour's external tank has been loaded with a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel. The hydrogen vent line that derailed two launch tries in June is leak free and forecasters are hopeful afternoon showers will stay to the west to permit a launching at 6:03:10 p.m. EDT.
Storm cells north of the Kennedy Space Center. (Photo: NASA TV)
NASA's Mission Management Team, meanwhile, plans to meet at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the health of fuel cell No. 3, one of Endeavour's three electrical powerplants. The shuttle's fuel cells combine on-board hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity, producing fresh water as a by product.
Test data indicates a potential problem with fuel cell No. 3 that could prevent the device from operating normally at low power levels after the shuttle is docked to the International Space Station and drawing power from the lab's solar arrays.
If that happens - and engineers may not know until after docking - the fuel cell might have to operate at higher power levels to prevent producing too much water. Operating at higher power levels, however, would consume more oxygen and hydrogen than expected. Endeavour's mission is scheduled to last 16 days, but the flight plan assumes on-board supplies of oxygen and hydrogen are conserved during docked operations.
Overnight testing indicates fuel cell No. 3 is operating within normal limits, but its performance after docking is difficult to predict. More information will be posted here as it becomes available.
There are no other technical issues of any significance. With forecasters predicting a 60 percent chance of favorable weather, engineers began refueling the shuttle at 8:38 a.m. The procedure was completed without incident by around 11:38 a.m.
8:45 AM, 7/15/09: Shuttle Endeavour refueled for sixth launch try; fuel cell issue resolved (UPDATED at 9:50 a.m. with additional fuel cell background)
After assessing a potential problem with one of the shuttle Endeavour's three fuel cells, NASA managers cleared the ship for a sixth launch attempt Wednesday at 6:03:10 p.m. EDT. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of favorable weather.
Working by remote control, engineers in Firing Room 4 at the Kennedy Space Center began pumping a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel into the shuttle's external tank at 8:38 a.m. The process should be complete by around 11:38 a.m. when the countdown will enter a planned two-and-a-half-hour hold.
NASA television coverage of launch preparations is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m.
White Tyvek rain covers over Endeavour's forward rocket thrusters
were replaced Tuesday after one partially detached over the weekend.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - plans to began strapping in for launch at 2:43 p.m.
Overnight, engineers ran tests to assess the performance of fuel cell No. 3, one of three compact powerplants that combine oxygen and hydrogen to generate the shuttle's electricity. An unusual signature raised questions about the fuel cell's ability to operate at low power, a mode that is used when the shuttle is docked to the space station and drawing power from the lab's solar arrays.
Engineers are concerned the fuel cell might have to be operated at higher power levels during the mission, using more hydrogen and oxygen than expected and possibly impacting mission duration.
But after overnight tests, they concluded fuel cell No. 3 was stable and operating within specifications. But it remains to be seen how the powerplant will operate in orbit and engineers caution it's possible this issue may have to be revisited after docking.
There are no other technical issues of any significance, leaving the weather as the only major concern. While the forecast is generally favorable, afternoon thunderstorms are expected to develop that could cause problems.
Endeavour has now been delayed five times since an initial launch attempt June 11. The first two attempts were derailed by a leaking hydrogen vent line, but the most recent three delays - July 11, 12 and 13 - were caused by stormy afternoon weather.
Two shuttle missions - STS-61C in January 1986 and STS-73 in October 1995 - share the record for launch delays, each suffering through six launch slips before finally taking off on their seventh try.
If Endeavour is grounded for a record-tying sixth time today, Polansky and company will only have one more chance on Thursday before the flight slips to July 26 to make way for launch and docking of a Russian Progress supply ship. The forecast for Thursday is 50-50.
6:00 PM, 7/14/09: NASA readies Endeavour for Wednesday launch; managers approve Thursday launch, and shortened mission, if needed
Engineers replaced rocket nozzle rain covers Tuesday and prepared the shuttle Endeavour for a sixth launch attempt Wednesday, weather permitting, to get a complex space station construction mission underway.
Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of good weather for Endeavour's planned launching at 6:03:10 p.m. EDT. But if the weather or some other problem crops up and launch is delayed a record-tying sixth time, NASA managers Tuesday agreed to make one final launch attempt Thursday before standing down until July 26.
For a launch Wednesday, the Endeavour astronauts will have to revise their flight plan and defer some activities until after the shuttle undocks from the space station. The changes are required to make sure the crew completes the docked phase of the mission and departs on July 28, clearing the way for a Russian Progress supply ship to dock at the lab complex on July 29.
For a launching Thursday, however, the astronauts would have to eliminate their fifth and lowest priority spacewalk to ensure a July 28 undocking.
The Progress is scheduled for launch July 24 and would normally dock July 27. It can loiter in orbit an additional two days, but it must dock by July 29 at the latest.
If Endeavour fails to get off Wednesday or Thursday, launch will slip to July 26 and Endeavour would dock at the station the day after the Progress's normal July 27 arrival time.
NASA managers are hopeful it won't come to that. There are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39A and engineers plan to begin reloading Endeavour's external tank with a half-million gallons of rocket fuel starting at 8:38 a.m. Wednesday.
NASA will provide live television coverage of fueling operations starting at 8:30 a.m., with normal launch coverage starting at 12:30 p.m.
Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra plan to begin strapping in around 2:43 p.m. to await launch.
Here are countdown highlights for Wednesday (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT Wednesday, July 15 08:30 AM......NASA TV fueling coverage begins 08:38 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 6 hours) 08:38 AM......LO2, LH2 transfer line chilldown 08:48 AM......Main propulsion system chill down 08:48 AM......LH2 slow fill 09:18 AM......LO2 slow fill 09:23 AM......Hydrogen ECO sensors go wet 09:28 AM......LO2 fast fill 09:38 AM......LH2 fast fill 11:33 AM......LH2 topping 11:38 AM......LH2 replenish 11:38 AM......LO2 replenish 11:38 AM......Begin 2-hour 30-minute built-in hold (T-minus 3 hours) 11:38 AM......Closeout crew to white room 11:38 AM......External tank in stable replenish mode 11:53 AM......Astronaut support personnel comm checks 12:23 PM......Pre-ingress switch reconfig 12:30 PM......NASA TV coverage begins 01:41 PM......Final crew weather briefing 01:51 PM......Crew suit up begins 02:08 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 02:13 PM......Crew departs O&C building 02:43 PM......Crew ingress 03:33 PM......Astronaut comm checks 03:58 PM......Hatch closure 04:28 PM......White room closeout 04:48 PM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 04:58 PM......NASA test director countdown briefing 04:58 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 04:59 PM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 05:03 PM......KSC area clear to launch 05:09 PM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 05:39 PM......NTD launch status verification 05:54:10 PM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 05:55:40 PM...Orbiter access arm retraction 05:58:10 PM...Launch window opens 05:58:10 PM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 05:58:15 PM...Terminate LO2 replenish 05:59:10 PM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 05:59:10 PM...IMUs to inertial 05:59:15 PM...Aerosurface steering profile 05:59:40 PM...Main engine steering test 06:00:15 PM...LO2 tank pressurization 06:00:20 PM...GOX vent arm retraction 06:00:35 PM...Fuel cells to internal reactants 06:00:40 PM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 06:01:10 PM...Crew closes visors 06:01:13 PM...LH2 tank pressurization 06:02:20 PM...Orbiter to internal power 06:02:39 PM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 06:02:49 PM...SRB steering test 06:03:03 PM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 06:03:10 PM...SRB ignition (LAUNCH)
NASA originally planned to launch Endeavour on June 13, but the flight was scrubbed during fueling when a leak developed where a gaseous hydrogen vent line attaches to the shuttle's external tank. Engineers replaced an internal seal and reset the countdown for a June 17 launch, but the vent line leaked again during fueling and the mission was put on hold.
Engineers eventually traced the problem to a slight misalignment in the vent port housing built into the side of the tank. A more flexible internal seal was installed and modifications were made to the vent line attachment plate to ensure a tight fit. A fueling test July 1 confirmed the vent line was leak free and launch was reset for Saturday, July 11.
But a severe thunderstorm rumbled across the Kennedy Space Center the day before and 11 lightning strikes were recorded at pad 39A. NASA managers decided early July 11 to delay launch one day, to July 12, to give engineers time to make sure Endeavour suffered no lightning-related problems.
With a clean bill of health, NASA pressed ahead for a Sunday launch attempt. But the countdown was called off during a final hold at the T-minus nine-minute mark because of approaching thunderstorms. NASA managers decided to make another attempt Monday, opting not to repair a partially detached rocket nozzle rain cover on a forward thruster.
But again, approaching electrical storms derailed the shuttle's fifth launch attempt. NASA managers then delayed another launch try to Wednesday to give engineers time to replace all the rocket nozzle rain covers protecting the shuttle's forward thrusters.
For the record, two shuttle missions - STS-61C in January 1986 and STS-73 in October 1995 - share the record for launch delays, each suffering through six launch slips before finally taking off on their seventh attempt.
6:50 PM, 7/13/09: Shuttle launch delayed another day by thunderstorms (UPDATED at 9:10 p.m. with news briefing; NASA managers mulling possible Thursday launch try if Endeavour not off by Wednesday)
For the second day in a row, approaching thunderstorms near the Kennedy Space Center Monday forced NASA managers to order another launch delay for the shuttle Endeavour's frustrated crew. It was the fifth delay for the space station assembly mission since a hydrogen leak scuttled the crew's first launch try in June.
"Well Roman, again, the vehicle and our teams were ready," Launch Director Pete Nickolenko radioed from the firing room at 6:39 p.m. "But the weather's just bitten us again with lightning within 20 nautical miles in violation of our launch weather. So for that, we're going to have to declare a scrub again for the day today. We'll talk and convene and decide our forward path, whether it's tomorrow or Wednesday."
"We understand, Pete. That's the nature of our business," commander Mark "Roman" Polansky replied from Endeavour's flight deck. "Like I said before, when the timing's right we'll be here and we'll be ready."
Storm clouds approach the Kennedy Space Center Monday.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Within a few minutes of the scrub, NASA managers opted to pass up a Tuesday launch opportunity and to recycle the countdown for a sixth launch attempt Wednesday at 6:03:10 p.m. EDT.
By delaying 48 hours to Wednesday, engineers will have time to repair a rocket thruster rain cover that has pulled loose slightly. The forecast for Wednesday calls for a 60 percent chance of good weather as opposed to a 40 percent chance on Tuesday.
But slipping to Wednesday means the crew likely will have to re-arrange the mission timeline, deferring some off-duty time and pre-entry packing until after Endeavour undocks from the station to make sure the shuttle is out of the way before a Russian Progress supply ship arrives at the lab complex.
The Progress is scheduled for launch July 24. It can loiter in space for up to five days, but it must dock by July 29.
Going into the current launch campaign, NASA managers said Endeavour had to take off by Tuesday for the crew to carry out a full-duration 16-day space station assembly mission and undock before the Progress arrives.
But space station planners now believe the crew can carry out all five planned spacewalks if Endeavour gets off Wednesday by simply re-arranging the crew's timeline. They also are looking into the possibility of launching Thursday, if necessary.
But in that case, the astronauts would have to give up one of their five spacewalks and it's not yet clear whether that is a viable option or not.
Mike Moses, director of shuttle integration at the Kennedy Space Center, said NASA will not attempt a launch past Thursday. If the shuttle isn't off by Wednesday or Thursday, launch will be delayed to July 26. In that case, the Progress would dock on time July 27 and Endeavour would arrive the next day.
There were no technical problems today and as with Sunday's countdown, Endeavour's fuel tank was loaded with a half-million gallons of oxygen and hyydrogen without incident. The hydrogen vent line that leaked last month, derailing two launch attempts June 13 and 17, worked normally Sunday and again today.
But Florida's weather has been turbulent for the past few weeks, with thunderstorms developing regularly over the Space Coast. Going into Monday's launch campaign, forecasters predicted a 40 percent chance of acceptable weather.
But late in the day, as western and eastern sea breezes collided near the space center, storms cells popped up and moved into the 40-nautical-mile wide zone that must be clear of showers and low clouds for a launching to proceed. Of particular concern was a towering cell north of the pad that was in the shuttle's flight path.
NASA's launch rules protect a 10 nautical-mile-radius circle around the pad and forecasters at the space center were no-go due to lightning, field mills and electrically charged anvil clouds.
Launch aside, a shuttle crew also must be able to make an emergency landing back at the space center in the event of an engine failure early in flight. NASA flight rules prohibit a launch if forecasters detect rain or heavy cloud cover within 20 nautical miles of the runway.
The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which oversees landing weather, was "no-go" for return-to-launch-site weather.
With only a five-minute launch window, Launch Director Pete Nickolenko did not have time to wait for improving conditions. After forecasters said they were no-go for launch and landing, he called off the countdown during a final hold at the T-minus nine-minute mark.
9:45 AM, 7/13/09: Shuttle refueled for Monday launch try (UPDATED at 1:50 p.m. with additional launch option details)
Running a month behind scheduled because of hydrogen leaks, launch pad lightning strikes and stormy weather, the shuttle Endeavour was refueled for a fifth launch try Monday to kick off a 16-day space station construction mission. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of another delay due to expected afternoon storms.
Hoping for the best, engineers began pumping liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel to the shuttle's external tank at 9:33 a.m. The fueling procedure was completed at 12:37 p.m. when engineers transitioned to "stable replenish" mode. The hydrogen vent line that triggered two launch delays last month is working normally, with no signs of any leakage.
If all goes well, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra will begin strapping in around 3:30 p.m. for a launch attempt at 6:51:24 p.m.
"While we all hope that today's the day, we have a saying that you never know for sure until the solid rockets light off," Polansky said in a Twitter posting early today.
The only technical issue under discussion overnight centered on a partially detached Tyvek cover over one of Endeavour's forward left rocket thrusters. The covers, used to keep rain water and debris out of the shuttle's thruster nozzles on the launch pad, pull away during the early moments of flight.
The white Tyvek rain cover over the upper thruster in the>photo above
has pulled away slightly at the top, allowing a path for rain water to
get in the rocket nozzle. (Photo: NASA TV)
The only way to re-attach or replace the debonded cover is to move a protective gantry back in place around the shuttle. Engineers decided not to do that before today's launch attempt, but any significant rain at the pad likely would trigger a delay. Water trapped in the nozzle could turn to ice in space and possibly damage the thruster.
As it now stands, NASA must get Endeavour off the pad by Tuesday to carry out a full-duration five-spacewalk mission. A Russian Progress resupply ship is scheduled for launch July 24 and while it can "loiter" in orbit for five days, it must dock by July 29. That means Endeavour must take off by Tuesday to complete a full-duration mission in time to undock by July 28, making way for the Progress.
Depending on how today's launch attempt play out, NASA could opt to make a launch attempt Wednesday, but the mission likely would have to be shortened by one day. The forecast for Tuesday is 60 percent no-go, improving to 60 percent go on Wednesday.
If the shuttle doesn't get off by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, the flight likely will slip to July 26 or 27.
Here is the remainder of today's countdown (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT Monday, July 13 02:56 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 03:01 PM......Crew departs O&C building 03:31 PM......Crew ingress 04:21 PM......Astronaut comm checks 04:46 PM......Hatch closure 05:16 PM......White room closeout 05:36 PM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 05:46 PM......NASA test director countdown briefing 05:46 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 05:47 PM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 05:51 PM......KSC area clear to launch 05:57 PM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 06:27 PM......NTD launch status verification 06:42:24 PM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 06:43:54 PM...Orbiter access arm retraction 06:46:24 PM...Launch window opens 06:46:24 PM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 06:46:29 PM...Terminate LO2 replenish 06:47:24 PM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 06:47:24 PM...IMUs to inertial 06:47:29 PM...Aerosurface steering profile 06:47:54 PM...Main engine steering test 06:48:29 PM...LO2 tank pressurization 06:48:34 PM...GOX vent arm retraction 06:48:49 PM...Fuel cells to internal reactants 06:48:54 PM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 06:49:24 PM...Crew closes visors 06:49:27 PM...LH2 tank pressurization 06:50:34 PM...Orbiter to internal power 06:50:53 PM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 06:51:03 PM...SRB steering test 06:51:17 PM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 06:51:24 PM...SRB ignition (LAUNCH)
07:00 PM, 7/12/09: Shuttle launch delayed another day by stormy weather
Stormy weather approaching the Kennedy Space Center forced NASA launch managers to order another 24-hour delay for the hard-luck crew of the shuttle Endeavour Sunday, their fourth slip since a hydrogen leak derailed an initial launch try in June.
Stormy weather rolls toward the Kennedy Space Center, forcing
NASA to delay launch of shuttle Endeavour. (Photo: Spaceflightnow.com)
There were no leaks or technical problems of any significance during today's countdown and Endeavour's external tank was loaded with a half-million gallons of rocket fuel without incident.
Commander Mark Polansky and his crewmates began strapping in a few minutes before 4 p.m. EDT, hopeful about finally kicking off a 16-day space station assembly mission.
But as the afternoon wore on, storm cells began pushing in from the west and forecasters predicted thunderstorms or showers within 20 nautical miles of the shuttle's emergency runway. NASA flight rules forbid a launch if forecasters predict rain near the runway a half hour after launch when the crew would have to attempt an emergency landing in the event of an engine failure early in flight.
With a short five-minute window, Launch Director Pete Nickolenko did not have time to wait for improving conditions and with forecasters solidly no-go for launch, he reluctantly called off the countdown during a final hold at the T-minus nine-minute mark.
"Roman, we got the vehicle ready and the weather unfortunately did not cooperate with us today, we had some colliding sea breezes," Nickolenko radioed just after 7 p.m. "We're going to have to declare a scrub for today and try to bring the team back for another attempt tomorrow."
"We understand and we'll be ready," Polansky replied from Endeavour's flight deck.
Endeavour's next launch opportunity comes at 6:51:24 p.m. Monday. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather Monday and Tuesday.
As it now stands, Endeavour must be off the ground by Tuesday or the flight will be delayed to July 27, after a high-priority Russian Progress resupply mission scheduled for launch July 24.
This status report will be updated as more information becomes available.
4:00 PM, 7/12/09: Astronauts strap in for launch
The shuttle Endeavour's seven-member crew suited up, headed to pad 39A and began strapping in Sunday for launch on a delayed space station assembly mission.
The shuttle's external tank has been loaded with fuel, there are no technical problems of any significance and forecasters are hopeful the weather will cooperate for a launching at 7:13:55 p.m. EDT.
Wearing bright-orange pressure suits, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra departed crew quarters just before 3:30 p.m. for the 25-minute trip to pad 39A.
The Endeavour astronauts leave crew quarters and head for pad 39A
to strap in for launch. (Photo: NASA TV)
There are no significant technical issues and the only question mark is the weather. Forecasters are continuing to predict generally good weather, but it remains to be seen whether any afternoon thunderstorms or electrically charged anvil clouds will move into the launch are as the day wears on.
12:10 PM, 7/12/09: Hydrogen vent line working normally; no leaks
The 7-inch gaseous hydrogen vent line that derailed two attempts to launch the shuttle Endeavour in June is working normally today and engineers report no signs of any leakage.
The hydrogen section of the shuttle's external tank reached the 98 percent full point at 11:47 a.m. and shortly thereafter, transitioned to to the "topping" phase of fueling. It was at this point during fueling for launch attempts June 13 and 17 that engineers noticed a leak at the vent link umbilical attachment plate on the side of the shuttle's external tank.
The leak only showed up when the tank was nearly full and the vent line hardware was subjected to ultra-low temperatures. After the second launch scrub last month, engineers traced the problem to a misalignment issue with the vent port housing built into the side of the tank.
The hydrogen vent line attached to Endeavour's external tank. (Photo: NASA TV)
To correct the problem, a different type seal was installed in the quick-disconnect fitting and modifications were made to the vent line attachment plate to ensure a tight fit. The system worked normally during a fueling test July 1 and appears to be working normally again today.
The three-hour fueling procedure began at 9:48 a.m. EDT and should be complete just before 1 p.m. There are no technical problems at pad 39A and forecasters are continuing to predict a 70 percent chance of good weather at launch time. Liftoff is targeted for 7:13:55 p.m.
10:00 AM, 7/12/09: Shuttle cleared for launch; fueling begins
NASA managers cleared the shuttle Endeavour for launch Sunday after a 24-hour delay to make sure launch pad lightning strikes Friday caused no damage to critical systems. With a clean bill of health and forecasters predicting a 70 percent chance of good weather, engineers began loading the shuttle's external tank with rocket fuel at 9:48 a.m. EDT.
If all goes well, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra will begin strapping in for launch a few minutes before 4 p.m.
Liftoff is targeted for 7:13:55 p.m., roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the International Space Station's orbit.
The primary goals of the 16-day five-spacewalk mission are to attach an experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo module, to replace aging solar array batteries and to deliver critical spare parts. In addition, Kopra will replace station flight engineer Koichi Wakata, launched to the outpost last March.
Endeavour was grounded twice last month when leaks developed where a 7-inch gaseous hydrogen vent link attaches to the side of the shuttle's external tank. The leaks showed up when the hydrogen section of the tank was nearly full and the hardware was chilled to ultra-low temperatures.
After the second scrub June 17, engineers traced the problem to a slight misalignment in the vent port housing on the side of the tank. A more flexible two-part seal was installed and changes were made to the vent line mounting plate to ensure a tight fit. The repairs were tested July 1 during a fueling test and the vent line system was leak free.
NASA then reset launch for Saturday but managers ordered a 24-hour delay to assess the potential effects of multiple lightning strikes at the launch pad during a severe thunderstorm Friday. Early today, engineers concluded there were no lightning-related problems with any of the shuttle's systems and Endeavour was cleared for launch.
Forecasters are predicting showers and thunderstorms inland with just a few clouds at the launch site at 3,000 feet, a scattered deck at 25,000 feet and winds out of the southeast at 8 knots with gusts to 12. There is a 30 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms moving within 20 nautical miles of the launch site.
Fueling should be complete just before 1 p.m. At about the same time, a Russian Progress supply ship will be in the final stages of a re-rendezvous with the International Space Station, approaching to within about 30 feet of the lab complex to test docking system navigation aids on the upward-facing port of the Zvezda command module.
Antennas and cabling for the navigation system were installed during a spacewalk last month and today's test is intended to demonstrate the new port can be used later this year when a new Russian module homes in for an automated docking. NASA will provide live television coverage of the rendezvous test beginning at 12:30 p.m.
Here is the remainder of today's countdown (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT 09:48 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 6 hours) 09:48 AM......LO2, LH2 transfer line chilldown 09:58 AM......Main propulsion system chill down 09:58 AM......LH2 slow fill 10:28 AM......LO2 slow fill 10:33 AM......Hydrogen ECO sensors go wet 10:38 AM......LO2 fast fill 10:41 AM......Crew medical checks 10:48 AM......LH2 fast fill 12:30 PM......NASA TV coverage of Progress rendezvous test begins 12:43 PM......LH2 topping 12:48 PM......LH2 replenish 12:48 PM......LO2 replenish 12:48 PM......Begin 2-hour 30-minute built-in hold (T-minus 3 hours) 12:48 PM......Closeout crew to white room 12:48 PM......External tank in stable replenish mode 01:03 PM......Astronaut support personnel comm checks 01:15 PM......NASA TV coverage of Progress rendezvous test concludes 01:28 PM......Crew photo op (recorded) 01:33 PM......Pre-ingress switch reconfig 02:00 PM......NASA TV launch coverage begins 02:43 PM......Final crew weather briefing 02:53 PM......Crew suit up begins 03:18 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 03:23 PM......Crew departs O&C building 03:53 PM......Crew ingress 04:43 PM......Astronaut comm checks 05:08 PM......Hatch closure 05:38 PM......White room closeout 05:58 PM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 06:08 PM......NASA test director countdown briefing 06:08 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 06:09 PM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 06:13 PM......KSC area clear to launch 06:19 PM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 06:49 PM......NTD launch status verification 07:04:55 PM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 07:06:25 PM...Orbiter access arm retraction 07:08:55 PM...Launch window opens 07:08:55 PM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 07:09:00 PM...Terminate LO2 replenish 07:09:55 PM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 07:09:55 PM...IMUs to inertial 07:10:00 PM...Aerosurface steering profile 07:10:25 PM...Main engine steering test 07:11:00 PM...LO2 tank pressurization 07:11:05 PM...GOX vent arm retraction 07:11:20 PM...Fuel cells to internal reactants 07:11:25 PM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 07:11:55 PM...Crew closes visors 07:11:58 PM...LH2 tank pressurization 07:13:05 PM...Orbiter to internal power 07:13:24 PM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 07:13:34 PM...SRB steering test 07:13:48 PM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 07:13:55 PM...SRB ignition (LAUNCH)
>07:15 PM, 7/11/09: Launch forecast updated; 70 percent 'go' Sunday
Forecasters have revised the outlook the shuttle Endeavour's planned launching Sunday, improving the odds of good weather from 60 percent to 70 percent. The major concern remains the possible development of thunderstorms within 20 nautical miles of launch pad 39A.
The forecast for Monday and Tuesday, the final day in the current launch period, calls for a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.
Launch is targeted for 7:13:55 p.m. Sunday, assuming engineers can complete an analysis of lightning strikes at the pad Friday and confirm no damage to the shuttle's electrical systems.
10:40 AM, 7/11/09: Shuttle launch SCRUBBED for 24 hours to evaluate Friday lightning strikes near pad (UPDATED at 12:45 p.m. with news briefing; quotes and details)
Already a month behind schedule, launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a 16-day space station assembly mission was delayed at least 24 hours, from Saturday to Sunday, to give engineers time to evaluate the effects of multiple lightning strikes at the launch pad during a severe thunderstorm Friday.
Eleven lightning strikes were recorded within 1,800 feet of the launch pad 39A and while the shuttle is protected from lightning-induced electrical surges, NASA managers decided more time was needed to make sure no critical systems were affected.
"We've seen nothing so far that indicates anything was actually affected by the lightning strikes," said Mike Moses, director of shuttle launch integration at the Kennedy Space Center. "So I fully expect this to be a positive story, but we have a lot of equipment that has to be checked and that's what takes time."
Assuming no problems are found, NASA will reset Endeavour's countdown for a launch Sunday at 7:13:55 p.m. EDT. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.
Friday afternoon, however, severe storms rumbled across the space center bringing torrential rain and electrical activity. "It was snap, crackle and pop out there," one official said.
Lightning strikes the mast atop pad 39A Friday. (Photo: NASA TV)
"If you were here in town yesterday, you saw a pretty spectacular electrical storm here at the Cape yesterday afternoon," Moses said. "We have several different systems out there monitoring lightning and we have a bunch of different rules and regulations and guidelines. But the bottom line is, we took 11 strikes within the point-three nautical miles (1,800 feet) of the pad."
The fixed gantry at the pad features a huge lightning mast that is connected to the ground by a catenary wire system anchored on the north and south sides of the complex. Seven of the 11 strikes hit the wires and two of those were above the threshold that requires additional analyses.
"We don't have any attached strikes to the orbiter itself, to the external tank, to the SRBs (boosters)," Moses said. "But we do know from our camera system that we took strikes on the lightning mast, the water tower, the wires themselves. So there were seven different events.
"With a lightning event, you have the initial spike of electricity that you are worried about, but then you also have a very fast-moving electrical field, which causes a magnetic field that can induce voltage on circuits that aren't even connected to it."
Two of the lightning strikes Friday resulted in 110-volt surges in the shuttle's electrical systems, just enough to qualify the strikes as official "lightning events."
"Strikes that close to the pad kick off extensive data analysis to make sure there are no problems," Moses said. "We have a panel, called the E3 panel, the electromagnetic effects panel, they take a look and decide if that strength of strike was big enough to then cause concern for the integrated stack, the orbiter, the ET, the SRBs. And if it was, then our engineering review panel will then go off, gather more data and determine if a re-test is required."
By early today, engineers had determined Endeavour's external tank was in good shape, as were the shuttle's main engines and associated ground systems. The shuttle's payload also appears unharmed, although additional checks are planned.
The additional day was required primarily to make sure the shuttle's sensitive electronics were undamaged, along with the critical pyrotechnic systems needed to safely operate the ship's twin solid-fuel boosters.
"Those two areas decided they did need a little more retest to make sure that their systems are good," Moses said. "Part of the problem is, that retest can take different forms. If you think about it, on the SRBs, one of the things we're worried about are the pyro systems to separate the SRBs away from the external tank. Well, you can't really go check that system and turn it on because you don't want to go fire off those pyros.
"So we have various levels of tests we can do on some circuitry, but you've really got to make sure you're really checking what you need to check. So the teams were pretty confident we have enough data on other buses (circuits) to know that that (pyro) circuitry was OK, but we weren't quite there this morning."
Moses said the additional analysis is intended to give engineers confidence the most critical systems are, in fact, safe to fly.
"The concern really is mostly in those pyrotechnic systems," he said. "There are a lot of things that have to go right.ÊYou need the SRB igniters to fire, you need the separation bolts to fire to release the SRBs from the mobile launch platform, you need the separation motors to fire to separate you from the external tank. We don't like to talk about it, but you need the self-destruct system to work if you truly needed it to work.
"There's a lot of systems in pyrotechnic land that really do have to work," he said. "And a lot of that stuff is gear that, because there's a pyrotechnic device hooked up to it, we can't just go apply a voltage and make sure nothing got damaged because there's live ordnance at the other end of it. So without disconnecting that ordnance, checking the line and hooking it back up, it's hard to be sure. But that's why we need to double check everything."
An updated countdown will be posted later this afternoon, but a revised flight plan is not yet available. Updates will be posted as soon as possible.
2:00 PM, 7/10/09: Shuttle countdown on track; no technical issues with Endeavour; weather still 60 percent 'no-go'
The shuttle Endeavour's countdown is ticking smoothly toward launch Saturday evening on a delayed space station assembly mission to attach an experiment platform to a Japanese lab module, to replace aging solar array batteries and to deliver spare parts and supplies.
There are no technical problems of any significance at launch complex 39A, but forecasters are continuing to predict a 60 percent chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms and electrical activity that could trigger another delay. Launch is targeted for 7:39:35 p.m. EDT Saturday.
"Overall, our primary concern on launch day is for thunderstorms and showers to be in the area, particularly within 20 nautical miles of the shuttle landing facility and 10 nautical miles of the launch pad," said shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters.
Good weather is expected at NASA's emergency runways in the United States and Europe, Winters said, "so the primary concern will be here at the Kennedy Space Center."
The forecast improves to 60 percent "go" on Sunday with a 70 percent chance of acceptable conditions should launch be delayed to Monday.
"Bottom line from the team, everybody's go for launch, we have no major issues at all," said Mike Moses, director of shuttle launch integration at the Kennedy Space Center. "We're in really good shape for launch tomorrow. ... We do have some challenges with the weather, but we'll just work through those. I don't worry about things I can't control and I certainly cannot control the weather."
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - flew to Florida on Tuesday. The countdown began at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Engineers loaded liquid hydrogen and oxygen into Endeavour's on-board storage tanks overnight Thursday to power the ship's three electricity producing fuel cells. Countdown milestones today include main engine checks, heat shield inspections, communications system activation and retraction of a protective gantry that will set the stage for fueling.
If all goes well, engineers plan to begin pumping a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen into Endeavour's external tank beginning around 10:14 a.m. Saturday. The hydrogen and oxygen sections of the huge tank should be topped off and in "stable replenish" mode by 1:14 p.m.
Two previous launch attempts on June 13 and 17 were scrubbed during fueling when a hydrogen vent line attached to the side of the tank began leaking as the hydrogen section of the tank neared its full load. Engineers ultimately determined the vent port housing was built into the tank slightly out of alignment, causing a quick-disconnect fitting to pull away slightly under cryogenic conditions.
After the second delay, engineers replaced a rigid one-piece Teflon seal with a more flexible two-piece seal and used shim-like washers on the vent line attachment plate to make it less susceptible to temperature-induced movement.
To make sure the repairs would work, Endeavour's tank was re-loaded with oxygen and hydrogen July 1. Sensors detected no measurable leakage and engineers are confident the system will work as required Saturday.
Here are highlights for the remainder of Endeavour's countdown (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT Fri 07/10/09 02:00 PM......Begin 13-hour 14-minute hold 04:00 PM......ASP crew module inspection 05:30 PM......Comm activation 06:00 PM......Crew module voice checks 06:45 PM......L-1 engineering briefing 07:00 PM......Crew weather briefing 07:00 PM......Flight crew equipment late stow 11:00 PM......Rotating service structure to park position Sat 07/11/09 12:00 AM......Final heat shield, debris inspection 12:00 AM......Ascent switch list 03:14 AM......Resume countdown 03:44 AM......Pad clear of non-essential personnel 03:34 AM......Hydraulic power unit confidence check 04:24 AM......Fuel cell activation 05:14 AM......Booster joint heater activation 05:44 AM......Master events controller pre-flight test 05:59 AM......Tanking weather update 06:44 AM......Final fueling preps; launch area clear 07:14 AM......Red crew assembled 07:59 AM......Fuel cell integrity checks complete 08:14 AM......Begin 2-hour built-in hold (T-minus 6 hours) 08:24 AM......Safe-and-arm PIC test 09:14 AM......External tank ready for loading 09:37 AM......Mission management team tanking meeting 09:44 AM......Crew medical checks 10:14 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 6 hours) 10:14 AM......LO2, LH2 transfer line chilldown 10:24 AM......Main propulsion system chill down 10:24 AM......LH2 slow fill 10:54 AM......LO2 slow fill 10:59 AM......Hydrogen ECO sensors go wet 11:04 AM......LO2 fast fill 11:07 AM......Crew medical checks 11:14 AM......LH2 fast fill 01:09 PM......LH2 topping 01:14 PM......LH2 replenish 01:14 PM......LO2 replenish 01:14 PM......Begin 2-hour 30-minute hold (T-minus 3 hours) 01:14 PM......Closeout crew to white room 01:14 PM......External tank in stable replenish mode 01:29 PM......Astronaut support personnel comm checks 01:59 PM......Pre-ingress switch reconfig 02:30 PM......NASA TV coverage begins 03:17 PM......Final crew weather briefing 03:27 PM......Crew suit up begins 03:44 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 03:49 PM......Crew departs O&C building 04:19 PM......Crew ingress 05:09 PM......Astronaut comm checks 05:34 PM......Hatch closure 06:04 PM......White room closeout 06:24 PM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 06:34 PM......NASA test director countdown briefing 06:34 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 06:35 PM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 06:39 PM......KSC area clear to launch 06:45 PM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 07:15 PM......NTD launch status verification 07:30:35 PM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 07:32:05 PM...Orbiter access arm retraction 07:34:35 PM...Launch window opens 07:34:35 PM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 07:34:40 PM...Terminate LO2 replenish 07:35:35 PM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 07:35:35 PM...IMUs on line 07:35:40 PM...Aerosurface steering profile 07:36:05 PM...Main engine steering test 07:36:40 PM...LO2 tank pressurization 07:36:45 PM...Gaseous oxygen vent arm retraction 07:37:00 PM...Fuel cells on line 07:37:05 PM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 07:37:35 PM...Crew closes visors 07:37:38 PM...LH2 tank pressurization 07:38:45 PM...Orbiter to internal power 07:39:04 PM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 07:39:14 PM...SRB steering test 07:39:28 PM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 07:39:35 PM...SRB ignition (LAUNCH)
12:30 PM, 7/9/09: Shuttle countdown proceeding smoothly; weather unchanged at 60 percent 'no-go'
Engineers are gearing up to pump liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the shuttle Endeavour's on-board tanks this evening to power the ship's three electricity producing fuel cells. Their are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39A, but forecasters are continuing to predict a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms and electrical activity Saturday that could delay Endeavour's launching.
Weather aside, NASA Test Director Steve Payne told reporters today Endeavour is in good shape and ready for launch on a 16-day space station assembly mission.
"Our systems are in excellent shape, we have no issues to report," he said at a morning countdown status briefing. "The STS-127 flight crew, Endeavour and the launch team are ready to go. We're all very excited to be back in launch countdown."
The countdown is timed to set up a launch attempt at 7:39:35 p.m. Saturday, the middle of a 10-minute launch window.
As it now stands, NASA has four days to get Endeavour off the ground or the flight will be delayed to July 27, after a high-priority Russian space station resupply mission. The forecast for Sunday calls for a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather, improving to 70 percent "go" on Monday.
While a four-day launch period and a less-than-pristine forecast are not ideal, Payne said statistics show that "by the third (launch) attempt, we typically have 97 percent of our missions flying. So it's a very good possibility we'll be up and out of the way by then."
10:15 PM, 7/8/09:Countdown begins for 7/11 launch; forecast 60 percent 'no-go'
Engineers started a fresh countdown for the shuttle Endeavour Wednesday, targeting a Saturday night launch to kick off a 16-day space station assembly mission. Running a month late because of a now-repaired hydrogen vent line leak, there are no technical problems of any significance at launch complex 39A. But forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms that could trigger another launch delay.
"I know the flight crew and the launch team are very excited about this launch countdown, we're all eager to get Endeavour and her crew on their way to the International Space Station," NASA Test Director Charlene Blackwell-Thompson said early Wednesday. "Endeavour's in great shape. ... I have no technical issues to report. We're ready to fly this mission."
Engineers started Endeavour's countdown at 10 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Launch is targeted for 7:39:35 p.m. Saturday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the space station's orbit. But shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said afternoon thunderstorms and associated electrical activity could cause problems.
"The weather has really been an issue for us this week," she said. "We've had afternoon thunderstorms each day and we're also expecting that we'll see some afternoon thunderstorms in the area around launch time on launch day as well. Another concern is the (electrically charged) anvils that blow off from the top of those thunderstorms. So with that, we are forecasting a 60 percent chance of KSC weather prohibiting launch."
The forecast for Sunday calls for better conditions, but Winters said she still expects a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms and nearby anvils. The forecast improves to 70 percent "go" on Monday.
NASA has four days to get Endeavour off the ground - July 11, 12, 13 and 14 - or the flight will slip to July 27 because of a critical Russian Progress space station resupply mission scheduled for launch July 24.
The Progress can "loiter" in orbit for five days, but it must dock by July 29. And that means Endeavour must take off by July 14 to complete a full-duration five-spacewalk mission in time to undock by July 27, making way for the Progress.
The goal of Endeavour's complex mission is to deliver a Japanese experiment platform, to replace aging solar array batteries, to store critical spare parts and to deliver supplies. The shuttle crew also will bring Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata back to Earth after five months in space, leaving NASA flight engineer Timothy Kopra behind in his place.
Kopra, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn flew to the Kennedy Space Center from Houston Tuesday to prepare for launch.
"I would just like to take a moment to recognize the outstanding work that was done by the workforce here and at the other NASA centers to go ahead and correct the problems that we encountered last month," Polansky said.
"Now it's ready for STS-127 to carry out its mission, and I can tell you this crew and the entire operations team are both eager and ready to get to work. So hopefully we will get a chance to do that come this Saturday evening."
Endeavour was grounded June 13 and 17 because of a gaseous hydrogen leak where a vent line attaches to the side of the shuttle's external fuel tank. After the second launch scrub, engineers discovered the vent port housing built into the side of the tank was misaliOKgned.
The leak only occurred when the vent line hardware was chilled to ultra-low temperatures. To fix the problem, engineers substituted a different type of internal seal and used shims to compensate for unwanted motion when the hardware contracts slightly under cryogenic conditions.
During a fueling test July 1, the vent line was leak free and engineers are confident the system will work properly the next time Endeavour is fueled for launch.
An updated countdown, flight plan, launch windows chart and other useful information is available on the CBS News STS-127 Quick-Look page.
4:00 PM, 7/1/09: NASA pleased with tanking test; agency pressing ahead for launch July 11
Sensors near a repaired hydrogen vent line attached to the shuttle Endeavour's external tank detected only the slightest traces of free hydrogen during a critical fueling test today, officials said, clearing the way for another launch attempt July 11.
The 7-inch vent line and the ground umbilical carrier plate used to connect it to a port on the side of the external tank will remain in their current configuration and engineers are confident the system will be leak free when Endeavour is fueled for launch on a space station assembly mission.
"We're in really good shape," said Mike Moses, the shuttle program launch integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "We're going to try on the 11th. ... We got it lined up just right and it doesn't leak."
The shuttle Endeavour after a fueling test Wednesday. The hydrogen
vent line is visible to the left. (Photo: NASA TV)
The vent line is used to carry excess hydrogen gas away from the shuttle when the tank is filled with super-cold propellant. A valve used to route hydrogen to the vent line is closed a few minutes before launch when the tank is pressurized for flight.
Endeavour was grounded June 13 and 17 when sensors near the umbilical attachment plate detected hydrogen concentrations of more than 60,000 parts per million, or 6 percent. The allowable concentration near the shuttle is 4 percent.
After the second launch scrub, engineers collected detailed measurements and concluded the problem was caused by an alignment issue between the hydrogen vent port on the tank and the vent line interface. To ensure a tight fit, engineers replaced a rigid Teflon seal with a more flexible design, modified the umbilical plate mounting pins and installed washer-like shims to counteract the alignment issue.
During the June launch attempts, the leaks occurred after the hydrogen section of the external tank was nearly full and fueling operations were transitioning from "fast fill" to "topping." In both cases, the leaks exceeded 60,000 parts per million.
During today's test, sensors detected a barely measurable 12 parts per million, a level so low it's not considered a sign of leakage.
"In this case, there were absolutely no leak indications and when we did transition all the way through the replenish operations, there were absolutely no leak indications whatsoever noted," said Launch Director Pete Nickolenko. The 12 parts per million reading was right at the limits of detectability, he said, and "we're calling that system tight, we show that as no leaks."
Moses said the same techniques used to ensure a near-perfect alignment of the vent line hardware will be used on all subsequent flights to prevent any repeat of the leaks that grounded Endeavour last month.
Assuming no other problems develop, NASA now plans to restart Endeavour's countdown at 10 p.m. next Wednesday, setting up a launch attempt at 7:39:33 p.m. Saturday, July 11. On board will be commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra.
Assuming an on-time liftoff, Polansky plans to guide the shuttle to a docking with the International Space Station at 3:25 p.m. on July 13. Five spacewalks are planned between July 14 and July 23, starting in the early afternoon to late morning U.S. time, to install a Japanese experiment platform, to replace aging solar array batteries and to store spare parts.
Kopra will remain behind aboard the space station when Endeavour undocks July 25, becoming part of the Expedition 20 crew. He will replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who was launched to the station in March and who will return to Earth aboard Endeavour. Landing at the Kennedy Space Center is targeted for 12:15 p.m. on July 27.
As it now stands, NASA will only have four days to get the shuttle off the ground or the flight will slip to July 27 because of a critical Russian Progress space station resupply mission scheduled for launch July 24.
The Progress can "loiter" in orbit for five days, but it must dock by July 29. And that means Endeavour must take off by July 14 to complete its mission in time to undock by July 27, making way for the Progress.
Because of Endeavour's problems getting off the ground, the next flight in the station assembly sequence, mission STS-128, has slipped from Aug. 6 to around Aug. 18. NASA plans to close out the year by launching the shuttle Atlantis Nov. 12, although that flight may slip into December when all is said and done.
Engineers recently ran into an unusual problem with Atlantis when an astronaut work light attachment knob was lost during the shuttle's recent Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. The hardware ended up lodged between a cockpit window pane and a flight deck instrument console. When the shuttle returned to Earth, the pressurized crew module contracted slightly and the knob was pinned against the glass.
The knob eventually was extracted by pressurizing the crew module and using dry ice to cool the metal enough to cause a slight amount of shrinkage. But the inner pressure pane in window No. 5 must now be inspected to make sure it did not suffer any structural damage.
Engineers are hopeful the window can be flown as is because replacing the inner pressure pane would take four to six months. Access is extremely tight and cockpit instrumentation would have to be disconnected, reconnected and retested after a window swap out.
With the shuttle program scheduled for retirement at the end of next year, a six-month schedule hit for one orbiter would require major replanning. But Moses said today NASA cannot complete the space station with just two shuttles, Endeavour and Discovery, and if Atlantis needs a window replacement, it will get one.
But engineers are hopeful it won't come to that.
10:30 AM, 7/1/09: Fueling test complete; hydrogen vent line works normally with no signs of leakage
A gaseous hydrogen vent line attached to the shuttle Endeavour's external tank worked flawlessly during a critical fueling test today. Sensors detected no measurable leaks like those that twice grounded Endeavour in June, clearing the way for NASA to make a third launch attempt July 11.
The fueling test began at 6:48 a.m. when engineers began loading the external tank with a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel. By 9 a.m., the hydrogen section of the tank was 98 percent full.
It was around that point in fueling for launch attempts June 13 and 17 that sensors detected higher-than-allowable gaseous hydrogen concentrations near the ground umbilical carrier plate where the 7-inch vent line attaches to the tank.
A hydrogen vent line attached to the shuttle Endeavour's external tank
was leak free during a critical fueling test Wednesday. (Photo: NASA TV)
Precise measurements indicated the rectangular vent port housing was misaligned slightly during the tank's construction, preventing the umbilical plate that attaches the vent line from forming a tight seal when the hardware was exposed to ultra-low temperatures.
To fix the problem, a different type of seal was installed in the vent line quick-disconnect system, one that is more flexible, and shim-like washers were installed on the umbilical plate mounting points to provide additional pressure on the side believed to be pulling away slightly as the hardware contracted under cryogenic conditions.
The repair work apparently paid off. During today's test, no measurable leakage was detected near the carrier plate when the tank was filled and in "stable replenish" mode, with a vent valve cycling to route excess hydrogen gas away from the launch pad.
Mission Management Team Chairman Mike Moses and Launch Director Pete Nickolenko plan to brief reporters on the results of the test at 1 p.m. An updated status report will be posted after the briefing.
9:15 AM, 7/1/09: Hydrogen vent line appears to work normally; no out-of-spec leakage detected
With the shuttle Endeavour's external tank loaded with super-cold rocket fuel, a gaseous hydrogen vent line that derailed two launch attempts in June appears to be working normally today midway through a critical test, with no signs of any leakage.
The test is not yet complete, but sensors near the 7-inch gaseous hydrogen vent line have not detected any measurable concentrations of free hydrogen in the area. NASA's safety limit of 4 percent, or 40,000 parts per million, was violated by this point during Endeavour's two previous launch attempts.
"Teams have not detected any leaks," said NASA commentator Candrea Thomas.
The test is scheduled to end around 10 a.m.
07:20 AM, 7/1/09: Shuttle fueling test begins
Working by remote control, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center began pumping a half-million gallons of super-cold liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel into the shuttle Endeavour's external tank early today in a make-or-break test to make sure the leaky hydrogen vent line that grounded the ship twice in June has been fixed. The fueling procedure began just before 7 a.m.
If the 7-inch vent line attached to the side of the shuttle's external tank proves to be leak free, or at least tight enough to avoid exceeding NASA's 40,000 parts per million safety limit, the agency will press ahead for a third launch attempt July 11.
But if sensors detect concentrations of hydrogen gas greater than 4 percent near the vent line attachment point, Endeavour's 16-day space station assembly mission will face another lengthy delay, possible up to two months if the shuttle has to be attached to a different tank.
Engineers should know, one way or the other, by around 9 a.m. as the fueling process nears completion.
The space shuttle Endeavour at the start of a critical fueling test
(Photo: NASA TV)
Endeavour was grounded June 13 and 17 when the hydrogen section of the tank was nearing its full load and the vent line hardware was subjected to cryogenic conditions.
After the initial launch scrub, engineers replaced an internal seal in the vent line quick-disconnect fitting but that did not resolve the problem and another leak during fueling for a June 17 launch forced NASA to stand down for more extensive troubleshooting.
Precise measurements indicated the rectangular vent port housing where the external vent line attaches to the side of the tank was misaligned slightly during the tank's construction, preventing the umbilical plate that attaches the vent line from forming a tight seal.
To fix the problem, a different type of seal was installed, one that is more flexible, and shim-like washers were installed on the umbilical plate mounting points to provide additional pressure on the side believed to be pulling away slightly as the hardware contracts under cryogenic conditions.
Engineers are confident they understand the problem, but today's test was ordered to make sure the fixes will, in fact, prevent the vent line umbilical plate from leaking beyond the allowable 40,000 parts per million.
08:50 PM, 6/30/09: NASA set for critical shuttle fueling test Wednesday to assess hydrogen vent line fix
Engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are preparing to load the shuttle Endeavour's external tank with liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel early Wednesday in a critical test that could either pave the way to launch July 11 or trigger another lengthy delay.
At issue is whether a different internal seal in an external tank gaseous hydrogen vent line, along with shims intended to offset an alignment problem, will prevent the sort of leaks that grounded Endeavour June 13 and 17.
If the line is leak free Wednesday, or at least tight enough to prevent concentrations higher than 4 percent near the vent line umbilical plate, NASA will press ahead with plans to launch Endeavour on a 16-day space station assembly mission July 11.
But if higher-than-allowable leakage is detected, shuttle managers could be forced to move Endeavour to a different external tank, a move that would delay launch up to two months or more in a worse-case scenario.
Engineers believe they understand the problem - the rectangular vent port housing in the side of the tank was riveted into place slightly out of alignment - and they are hopeful the alternate seal and shims will, in fact, keep the vent line quick-disconnect fitting from leaking.
Complicating the issue for troubleshooters, the leaks only show up when the hydrogen section of the tank is nearing a full load and the hardware in the vent line is subjected to ultra-low cryogenic temperatures. Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon ordered Wednesday's fueling test to assess the performance of the vent line fixes before committing to a full-up launch countdown.
Engineers began fueling test preparations Monday. If all goes well, super-cold liquid hydrogen will begin flowing from storage dewars to the shuttle around 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday. So-called "fast fill" operations will begin an hour later and the hydrogen section of the tank should be nearing its full load shortly after 9 a.m.
As of Tuesday evening, there were no technical problems of any significance at launch pad 39A, but forecasters say morning showers and thunderstorms may develop near the space center. For fueling, the probability of thunderstorms near the pad must be 20 percent or less.
NASA will provide television coverage of the fueling test starting at 7 a.m. A news briefing with Mission Management Team Chairman Mike Moses and launch director Pete Nickolenko is planned for 1 p.m. to discuss the results of the test.
Here is a timeline of major countdown events (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT........EVENT Wednesday, July 1 01:00 AM...Final preparations for fuel loading 03:00 AM...Personnel clear launch pad 06:00 AM...Countdown enters a one-hour hold 06:30 AM...External tank ready to load 06:30 AM...Mission Management Team meeting 07:00 AM...NASA television coverage begins 07:00 AM...Transfer line chill down 08:00 AM...Fast fill begins 09:15 AM...Liquid hydrogen tank 98 percent full 09:45 AM...Liquid hydrogen topping begins 10:00 AM...Launch pad walkdown 12:00 PM...Test team 'go' for tank drain 01:00 PM...NASA TV: Post-tanking test press briefing 01:30 PM...LH2 boil off (duration approximately 19 hours) 04:00 PM...Pad opened for limited access
In a bit of good news for NASA, engineers successfully extracted an astronaut work light attachment knob that was jammed between one of the shuttle Atlantis' cockpit windows and an instrument panel housing after the ship's just-completed mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
The knob, apparently lost by the crew during the mission, was pressing against window No. 5's critical internal pressure pane. It apparently got lodged in place during re-entry when the pressurized crew module contracted slightly.
The knob had to be removed to allow engineers to assess what, if any, damage had been done to the pressure pane when the knob got stuck. Engineers initially tried to cool it with dry ice, but the knob refused to budge. They then attempted to reverse the effects of the shuttle's descent by pressurizing the crew module. That worked, and engineers were able to retrieve the troublesome knob without having to resort to more invasive measures.
The issue was potentially significant because replacement of a pressure pane would require engineers to remove or disconnect cockpit instrumentation and other structures, work that could take four to six months to complete. NASA managers are hopeful the knob caused no significant damage to the window, but tests are not yet complete.
07:15 PM, 6/24/09: Tanking test targeted for July 1; engineers assess jammed knob in Atlantis window
Engineers plan to load the shuttle Endeavour's external tank with rocket fuel next Wednesday to test vent line fixes intended to stop, or at least reduce, gaseous hydrogen leaks that grounded the shuttle June 13 and 17, NASA officials said today. If the repairs work, the agency will press ahead with a third attempt to launch Endeavour on a space station assembly mission July 11.
A different sort of problem has cropped up for the shuttle Atlantis, just back from a successful mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. Sources say engineers recently discovered an astronaut work light attachment knob lodged between the inner pressure pane of cockpit window No. 5 and the back of an instrument panel housing.
The knob, used to mount a light on a bracket much like the knob on a tripod holds a camera, floated into a hard-to-see corner of the window area during the mission, when the crew cabin was pressurized to 14.7 pounds per square inch. It apparently got stuck between the inner window pane and the instrument panel housing when Atlantis returned to Earth and the cabin structure shrank slightly.
The knob is now firmly lodged against the inner pressure pane of window No. 5, the sources said. Because of uncertainty about whether the pane has been damaged, the knob must be removed - and the pane confirmed to be structurally sound - before Atlantis can fly again in November.
While the knurled knob is pressing against the pane in two locations, it's not yet clear whether the glass has suffered any measurable damage. But access is tight and engineers considering removal options must make sure they don't inadvertently damage the glass. Replacing a pressure pane, one official said, could take months because part of the cockpit instrumentation would have to be moved or disconnected to provide clearance.
Engineers have tried to cool the stuck knob with dry ice in hopes of getting it to shrink enough to permit removal, but that did not work. A variety of other techniques are under assessment and it's not yet clear what impact, if any, the issue might have for Atlantis' next mission. Launch is targeted for Nov. 12.
Endeavour was grounded twice June 13 and 17 by gaseous hydrogen leaks where a 7-inch vent line attaches to an umbilical plate on the side of the shuttle's external tank. Engineers believe the rectangular vent port housing built into the tank was misaligned slightly during the manufacturing process, preventing the umbilical plate and quick-disconnect fitting from achieving a tight seal.
To improve the vent line umbilical's ability to maintain a tight fit when the hardware is chilled to cryogenic temperatures, moving slightly as the mechanism contracts slightly, engineers are switching to an alternative two-part seal that is more flexible than the single-piece seal used earlier.
In addition, special washers will be installed on the umbilical plate's mounting points to act as shims, again to improve the system's ability to move slightly while maintaining a tight seal.
Hydrogen concentrations of up to 40,000 parts per million are allowable and engineers are hopeful the changes will eliminate the leakage, or at least reduce it to allowable levels. If so, NASA will press ahead with plans to launch Endeavour July 11.
Engineers plan to install a new flexible two-part seal in the vent line Thursday and to attach the quick-disconnect fitting Saturday. The "call to stations" to begin what amounts to a countdown to the fueling test is planned for Monday night. If all goes well, the tank will be loaded with super cold liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel Wednesday morning.
6:00 PM, 6/23/09: Shuttle managers to meet Wednesday to review leak test plans; fueling test expected June 30 or July 1
Shuttle managers plan to meet Wednesday to review procedures for a fueling test next week to assess the performance of an alternative internal seal and shim-like washers intended to eliminate a leak in a gaseous hydrogen vent line that has twice grounded the shuttle Endeavour.
If the fueling test goes well and sensors don't detect hydrogen concentrations greater than the allowable 40,000 parts per million, NASA will press ahead for a third attempt to launch Endeavour on a space station assembly mission at 7:39 p.m. July 11.
If higher-than-allowable leakage is again detected, program managers could be forced to move Endeavour to a different tank and boosters, triggering more significant downstream delays.
Engineers believe they understand the problem - a slightly misaligned vent port housing built into the side of Endeavour's external tank - but it remains to be seen whether the proposed fix will, in fact, eliminate the leaks that have grounded Endeavour.
The 7-inch-wide hydrogen vent line in question is needed to carry away potentially dangerous hydrogen vapor that builds up in the tank as it is loaded with fuel. By cycling a valve in the vent line, the proper internal pressure is maintained and excess hydrogen gas is routed to a "flare stack" near the pad where it is harmlessly burned away.
The launch pad vent line is attached to the side of the tank with a ground umbilical carrier plate and a quick-disconnect fitting. At liftoff, an explosive bolt is detonated and the vent line drops away from the tank.
Endeavour was grounded June 13 and 17 when sensors detected hydrogen concentrations greater than 40,000 parts per million at the umbilical plate interface.
Engineers initially believed the problem involved a slight misalignment of the vent line umbilical plate and/or trouble with a Teflon seal in the quick-disconnect fitting. A similar problem grounded the shuttle Discovery for four days last March.
The seal was replaced, but the system leaked again during fueling for the June 17 launch try. After additional analysis, engineers concluded the rectangular vent port housing itself, which was riveted into the side of the tank about six-tenths of a degree out of vertical, was preventing the umbilical plate/quick-disconnect fitting from maintaining a tight seal under cryogenic conditions.
The proposed fix is to install a two-piece flexible seal in the quick-disconnect fitting in place of the more rigid single-piece Teflon seal used earlier. In addition, the umbilical plate that connects the vent line to the tank will be mounted using different shim-like washers to help counteract the effects of the vent port misalignment.
In so doing, engineers hope to maintain a tight fit at the vent line interface despite the temperature-induced shrinkage and flexing that occurs when the tank is filled with propellants. The leak only shows up when the equipment is exposed to cryogenic conditions.
To save time and minimize the chance of introducing any variables that might affect the test, Program Manager John Shannon told the engineering team to forego adding any additional instrumentation for the upcoming fueling test. Instead, Endeavour's tank will be in normal flight configuration when it is loaded with a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel.
Two fueling test timelines are under consideration but managers favor a plan that calls for installing the new seal late this week and re-rigging the umbilical plate attachments Saturday. The fueling test itself would be expected between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. on either June 30 or July 1.
07:00 PM, 6/19/09: Engineers believe minor misalignment in external tank vent line housing causing hydrogen leaks; use of different seal may correct problem; tanking test planned to make sure; Shannon optimistic about 7/11 launch target
A very slight "clocking" misalignment in the way a hydrogen vent port on the shuttle Endeavour's external tank was built into the structure is the leading candidate for what caused gaseous hydrogen leaks that derailed two launch attempts June 13 and 17, the shuttle program manager said today.
The use of a different type of seal where a launch pad vent line attaches to the side of the external tank may resolve the problem. The alternative seal design should provide a tighter fit that is less susceptible to the temperature-related mechanical shrinkage and motion that can put uneven stress on the interface and lead to leaks.
To find out, engineers are making plans for a fueling test at launch pad 39A, loading Endeavour's tank with super-cold hydrogen rocket fuel and measuring leak rates where the vent line connects to the side of the tank. The leaks typically show up when the mechanism is subjected to cryogenic temperatures.
Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon told CBS News Friday that if the tanking test goes well, Endeavour should be able to make its July 11 launch target.
"I'm pretty confident," he said in a telephone interview.
The hydrogen vent line attached to shuttle Endeavour's external tank.
A leak in the vent line interface derailed two launch attempts June 13 and 17.
(Photo: NASA TV)
NASA initially attempted to launch Endeavour June 13. But the night before, as the shuttle's tank was nearing its full load, sensors detected a significant gaseous hydrogen leak at the ground umbilical carrier plate where the vent line attaches to the tank with a quick-disconnect fitting.
Liquid hydrogen, at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit, constantly "boils off" as the tank is being filled. The vent line is used to carry the potentially dangerous vapor away from the shuttle to maintain the proper internal pressure. At launch, an explosive bolt detonates and the vent line falls away from the tank.
While some leakage at the quick-disconnect fitting is acceptable, hydrogen concentrations higher than 40,000 parts per million are grounds for calling off a countdown.
That limit was exceeded during both of Endeavour's fuelings and after the second scrub, the flight was put on hold to make way for Thursday's launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Endeavour's launch window closes this weekend, due to temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit. Assuming NASA can, in fact, fix the hydrogen vent line problem in time, the next launch window for the shuttle will open on July 11 at 7:39 p.m. EDT.
But the agency will only have four days to get the shuttle off the ground or the flight will slip to July 27 because of a critical Russian Progress space station resupply mission scheduled for launch July 24.
The Progress can "loiter" in orbit for five days, but it must dock by July 29. And that means Endeavour must take off by July 14 to complete its 16-day space station assembly mission in time to undock before the Progress arrives.
Shannon said three engineering teams have been set up to resolve the vent line seal issue. One team will begin precise measurements of the vent line interface this weekend before taking the mechanism apart next week. Those measurements are needed to confirm the root cause hypothesis.
Engineers at Lockheed Martin's external tank plant in Michoud, La., are making plans to replace the current rigid Teflon seal with the alternative flexible two-part seal, evaluating washer-like shims on the umbilical plate's mounting hardware to further counteract the clocking misalignment.
Finally, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center will be making plans for a tanking test. Shannon said it would take about 10 days to finalize those plans. The actual fueling test would take place shortly thereafter.
"The hardware is still, they call it 'quarantined,' it hasn't been touched since we scrubbed," Shannon said. "The vehicle and the pad have been secured. There was a lot of discussion, I think the underlying root cause, they at least have a plausible reason why we had a leak twice.
"The way the umbilical line that carries the hydrogen away from the tank, the way it attaches to the tank is there's a plate that's bolted on with a pyrotechnic bolt. And there's a receiving plate that's on the external tank and those two are lined up, there are two little pieces of metal that go down to these hinge pins that keep it from moving side to side. And there's a Teflon seal ... on the inside of that flange coming out of the tank. The line going into it pressure fits in."
When Endeavour's tank was delivered from the assembly plant, "they were doing measurements and that flange on the ET side is cocked counter-clockwise .65 degrees," Shannon said.
"What has happened, we are pretty sure, is that when you put that external plate with the line on it onto the ET flange, there's a pyrotechnic bolt that holds those two together. It's above that round pipe. That whole system can rotate about that pyro bolt. If the two plates are in perfect alignment, it's not going to rotate, it'll just move slightly up and down. But since it is cocked a little bit ... it pulls the entire structure to the right (when the hardware contracts at cryogenic temperatures) and that allows a leak on the left side."
The clocking problem was the leading suspect after the June 13 launch scrub, he said. Shims were used to provide a firmer connection, but the seal still leaked. Engineers believe the two-part seal that will be used for the upcoming tanking test will provide the strength needed to resist the temperature-induced asymmetrical loading believed to be responsible for the leaks.
The shuttle Discovery also was grounded by a vent line leak in March. But in that case, the misalignment was not as great and when the seal was replaced a subsequent fueling went well.
Shannon said engineers noted 18 to 20 gaseous hydrogen leaks at the ground umbilical carrier plate interface during previous fuelings but in all but two of those cases, cycling the vent valve caused enough vibration to help the seal seat itself.
The so-called "two-part seal" has been used on two previous shuttle fuelings, but NASA ultimately returned to the current Teflon seal design because it tended to leak less. But the leaks experienced by the two-part seal were within specification and did not require any corrective action.
If higher-than-allowable leakage is seen during the fueling test using the alternative seal design, Shannon said the team may have to consider more extensive work to remove, realign and re-attach the vent line flange on the external tank. In that case, Endeavour likely would be moved to a different tank and launch would face a more significant delay.
But engineers believe Endeavour's problem is a one-time issue related to this particular external tank. A spare vent line carrier plate was attached to external tanks currently in production and no similar clocking problems were found.
"There's nothing wrong with the tank," Shannon said. "It's just the alignment of the ground system is off from the flight system."
2:58 AM, 6/17/09: LAUNCH SCRUBBED by gaseous hydrogen leak (UPDATED at 5:30 a.m. with news briefing; UPDATED at 6:15 a.m. with lunar launch reset for Thursday)
After a lengthy fueling delay because of stormy weather, launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a space station assembly mission was scrubbed early Wednesday when a presumably repaired hydrogen vent line umbilical began leaking potentially dangerous vapor for the second launch try in a row.
Given the apparent severity of the problem, and the planned launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Thursday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, Endeavour will be grounded until at least July 11 when the next shuttle-space station launch window opens.
"We've got to step back and try to understand this problem and we will do that," said LeRoy Cain, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team. "It's going to take us a little time. As a result of this scrub, we will be targeting our next earliest available launch opportunity ... and that'll be as early as July 11. We'll go work this problem and once we get it fixed and we're confident we have a solution that's going to work and allow us to go fly safely, then we'll proceed forward."
He said shuttle engineers "will be relentless in terms of trying to go understand what's going on with this system. We'll fix it and we'll move forward once we have determined we can get in a safe configuration to go fly."
The vent line in question, attached to the side of the shuttle's external fuel tank, carries hydrogen gas away from the shuttle so it can be safely dissipated. A leak in the same mechanism scrubbed a launch attempt last Saturday.
Engineers replaced a seal in the gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical plate Sunday and Monday and NASA managers were hopeful that would resolve the problem. A seal replacement worked last March when the shuttle Discovery was grounded by a similar leak.
While Endeavour's vent line passed leak checks at ambient temperatures, the seal replacement apparently wasn't enough to resolve the problem. During the initial stages of fueling, engineers observed a relatively small leak rate that, while unexpected, was within specification.
But as the tank filled and the temperature of the vent line kept dropping, the leak worsened. Engineers stopped the flow of hydrogen and cycled a valve in the system in hopes of clearing the problem, but they were not successful.
They then resumed hydrogen "fast fill" operations to collect additional data. When the vent valve was opened again, however, higher-than-allowable levels of hydrogen gas were detected, up to 60,000 parts per million. Additional vent valve cycles also were out of limits.
Finally, at 1:55 a.m. EDT, Launch Director Pete Nickolenko, overseeing his first countdown, reluctantly ordered a scrub.
"We are scrubbing the launch attempt for today," said launch commentator Mike Curie. "The troubleshooting efforts have not resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of gaseous hydrogen that's being detected outside of the ground umbilical carrier plate, the same area where we experienced a leak the last launch attempt."
Because of the conflict with this week's launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA only had one shot at getting Endeavour off the ground before the end of its current launch window.
The shuttle's normal launch window extends through Saturday. A launch on Sunday would be possible if mission managers eliminated one of the crew's five planned spacewalks. The window is defined by temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
After the shuttle countdown was called off Wednesday, launch of the LRO mission, originally planned for Wednesday but bumped to Friday by the shuttle, was moved up one day to Thursday.
Had the shuttle been grounded by bad weather, it might have been possible to make another launch attempt at the back end of the window, assuming the LRO mission got off on time. But given the nature of the hydrogen leak, it was a moot point.
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - took the delay in stride and planned to fly back to Houston later in the day.
"I'm sure you all know that we postponed again," Polansky said in a Twitter feed. "It's a reminder that spaceflight is NOT routine. We will fly home to Houston this morning."
The goals of Endeavour's mission are to attach an experiment platform to a Japanese research module, to replace aging solar array batteries, to deliver critical spare parts and to ferry Kopra to the station to replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
Wakata, launched to the space station last March aboard Discovery, was informed of Endeavour's launch delay - and his extended mission - earlier today.
"OK, it is great that this international crew will continue," he said. "Another month for me!"
With Endeavour now delayed to at least July 11, launch of the next space station assembly flight, currently targeted for Aug. 7, likely will be delayed as well in a downstream domino effect.
And that assumes engineers can resolve the umbilical plate problem in time for a July 11 launch. With today's scrub, leaks have developed at the vent line interface in three of the last five shuttle fuelings, indicating a potentially more serious problem than misalignment issues or isolated damage to a seal.
"It's too early for me to give you any idea of level of confidence," Cain said. "The direction we gave to the team today after our scrub was we need to step back from this problem and try to understand what is different in our process, if anything. Somehow, we've introduced some other variable or some change, albeit very small. But our sense is something has changed and something is different and we need to go re-evaluate."
Because of the earlier problems with Discovery in March and the leak Saturday, engineers already were looking into "the procedures, the materials, the techniques, everythingÊfrom A to Z associated with this part of the system," Cain said.
"It could be something as simple as a heat treatment to some material part in the system, it could be some change in a vendor that was done years ago that is just now being introduced because of a part number," he said.
"I don't want to speculate, there are a whole myriad of things that it could be. But that's the whole idea of stepping back and trying to determine what it is, if anything, that has changed."
2:45 AM, 6/17/09: Senior Launch Director says gaseous hydrogen leak 'way out of spec'
Senior Launch Director Mike Leinbach, serving as deputy to Pete Nickolenko for the shuttle Endeavour's countdown, said the gaseous hydrogen leak that grounded the spacecraft Wednesday for the second time in four days was too severe to continue with a launch attempt. Speaking on NASA television, Leinbach explained what happened leading up to the launch scrub.
"We got into tanking and everything looked like it was going fine until we were about an hour away from the end of tanking and we picked up the hydrogen leak at the umbilical again," he said. "This time, it was a little bit different. We were actually picking up the leak before we got into the topping sequence, which is where we've seen this leak before.
"So at that time, we knew we had a little bit different signature. We watched the data very closely, we did our standard troubleshooting techniques by cycling the valve to see if we could clean up that leak again and indeed, it never cleaned up. The signature was a little bit different, but that doesn't surprise me. With cryogenic leaks it would be very unusual to have an identical leak.
"And so the fact that this one was a little bit different and we thought we might be able to work our way through it, that didn't surprise me we were trying to do that.
"The team did an outstanding job over these last four days to get to this point," Leinbach said. "I sure wish we could have rewarded them and the astronauts and everybody with a launch this morning. But the leak was way out of spec again and so we were just not comfortable pressing on. As much as we tried to fix the leak, we just couldn't do it so we had to scrub and secure again.
"We're in the process of draining the external tank now. ... Sometime tomorrow evening, we'll be able to get our hands on this disconnect again and go into taking it apart. I imagine we'll put together a more detailed troubleshooting plan this time and go execute that once we get our hands on the disconnect again.
02:00 AM, 6/17/09: LAUNCH SCRUBBED by gaseous hydrogen leak
After a lengthy fueling delay because of stormy weather, launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a space station assembly mission was scrubbed early Wednesday when a presumably repaired hydrogen vent line umbilical began leaking potentially dangerous vapor.
The vent line, attached to the side of the shuttle's external fuel tank, carries hydrogen gas away from the shuttle so it can be safely dissipated. A leak in the same mechanism scrubbed a launch attempt last Saturday.
The gaseous hydrogen vent line attached to Endeavour's external tank.
(Photo: NASA TV)
Engineers replaced a seal in the gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical plate Sunday and Monday and NASA managers were hopeful that would resolve the problem. A seal replacement worked last March when the shuttle Discovery was grounded by a similar leak.
While Endeavour's vent line passed leak checks at ambient temperatures, the seal replacement apparently wasn't enough to resolve the problem. During the initial stages of fueling, engineers observed a relatively small leak rate that, while unexpected, was within specification.
But as the tank filled and the temperature of the vent line kept dropping, the leak worsened. Engineers stopped the flow of hydrogen and cycled a valve in the system in hopes of clearing the problem, but they were not successful.
They then resumed hydrogen "fast fill" operations to collect additional data. When the vent valve was opened again, however, higher-than-allowable levels of hydrogen gas were detected, up to 60,000 parts per million. Additional vent valve cycles also were out of limits.
Finally, at 1:55 a.m. EDT, Launch Director Pete Nickolenko, overseeing his first countdown, reluctantly ordered a scrub.
"We are scrubbing the launch attempt for today," said launch commentator Mike Curie. "The troubleshooting efforts have not resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of gaseous hydrogen that's being detected outside of the ground umbilical carrier plate, the same area where we experienced a leak the last launch attempt.
"STS-127 Launch Director Pete Nickolenko has just given the team a 'go' to scrub the launch attempt after two more attempts to open the vent valve once again displayed much higher than expected amounts of gaseous hydrogen."
Because of a conflict with the launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled for takeoff Friday atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, NASA is not expected to get another chance to launch Endeavour until July 11 at the earliest.
The shuttle's normal launch window extends through Saturday and a launch on Sunday would be possible if mission managers eliminate one of the crew's five planned spacewalks. The window is defined by temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
But the Air Force Eastern Range, which provides required telemetry and tracking support, cannot reset its systems in time to support a shuttle launch Sunday even if the LRO mission took off on time Friday.
At least that's what reporters were told earlier. NASA managers have not yet said when another attempt to launch Endeavour might be possible.
Either way, it was a frustrating disappointment to Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - and to the NASA launch teams at Kennedy and the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
If Endeavour is, in fact, delayed to July 11, launch of the next space station assembly flight, currently targeted for Aug. 7, would be delayed as well in a downstream domino effect.
And that assumes engineers can resolve the umbilical plate problem in time for a July 11 launch. With today's scrub, leaks have developed at the vent line interface in three of the last five shuttle fuelings, indicating a potentially more serious problem than a misaligned seal.
Additional information will be posted here as it becomes available.
01:00 AM, 6/17/09: Engineers monitoring leak near gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical
Engineers stopped loading liquid hydrogen into the shuttle Endeavour's external tank today at 1:02 a.m. because of a leak in the gaseous hydrogen umbilical that connects a vent line to the side of the tank. Launch remains targeted for 5:40:52 a.m. if the problem can be quickly resolved, but because fueling began nearly three hours late, there is little time available.
"At this time, engineers here in the launch control center at the Kennedy Space Center are monitoring a leak in the area of the ground umbilical carrier plate," said NASA launch commentator Mike Curie. "It's a leak in the amount greater than we would anticipate at this time (in the fueling procedure) and we'll keep our eyes on it."
Engineers cycled the valve in hopes of clearing the leak, but an initial attempt was not successful.
11:10 PM, 6/16/09: NASA clears shuttle for fueling
Running nearly three hours late because of thunderstorms near the Kennedy Space Center, engineers finally were cleared to begin pumping rocket fuel into the shuttle Endeavour's external tank just after 11 p.m. While the delay means little time is available to handle unexpected problems, launch on a space station assembly mission remains targeted for 5:40:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday.
Fueling had been scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m., but severe thunderstorms across central Florida, and electric activity near the spaceport, forced Launch Director Pete Nickolenko to hold off in hopes conditions would improve.
NASA safety rules prohibit fueling if lightning is within 5 miles of the launch pad or if the forecast is worse than 20 percent "no-go." At 8:15 p.m., the forecast was 40 percent no-go.
But nearly three hours later, the storms finally dissipated and conditions improved enough for NASA managers to clear the launch team to start the three-hour fueling procedure. Transfer line chill down, the first step in the fueling sequence, began at 11:04 p.m.
There are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39A and forecasters continue to predict an 80 percent chance of good weather at launch time.
01:45 PM, 6/16/09: Shuttle Endeavour set for fueling
Engineers pulled a protective gantry away from the shuttle Endeavour and restarted the orbiter's countdown Tuesday, setting the stage for launch Wednesday on a delayed space station assembly mission.
Countdown clocks at the Kennedy Space Center began ticking backward at the T-minus 11-hour mark at 1:15 p.m. EDT, setting the stage for a launch attempt at 5:40:52 a.m. Wednesday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries launch complex 39A into the plane of the space station's orbit.
There are no technical problems of any significance and forecasters are predicting an 80 percent chance of good weather at launch time.
The space shuttle Endeavour, exposed to view on pad 39A
(Phot0: NASA)
Because of a conflict with NASA's Lunar Orbiter Reconnaissance mission, Endeavour's crew will only have one shot at getting off the pad. If the weather or some other problem delays launch, the shuttle team will stand down to give the LRO team a launch opportunity Friday at 6:41 p.m.
Endeavour's normal launch window closes on June 20 and even if the LRO mission took off on time Friday, Endeavour would not get another launch opportunity until July 11, after a so-called "beta angle cutout" defined by the angle between the sun and the plane of the space station's orbit. During beta cutouts, temperature constraints can be violated when the shuttle is docked to the lab complex.
Hoping for the best, engineers plan to begin loading a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket fuel into Endeavour's external tank starting with transfer line chill down at 8:15 p.m. The remotely-controlled fueling procedure should be complete by around 11:15 p.m.
It was during fueling overnight last Friday that a significant leak showed up in an umbilical where a vent line attaches to the shuttle's external tank. The vent line is used to carry hydrogen gas from inside the tank to a flare stack well away from the shuttle where it can be safely burned away before launch.
The repaired hydrogen vent line attached to Endeavour's external tank.
(Photo: NASA TV)
The leak occurred as the hydrogen section of the external tank was nearing a full load late Friday and the umbilical plate that connects the vent line to the side of the tank was subjected to extremely low temperatures. A similar problem grounded the shuttle Discovery for four days last March.
Engineers are not sure what caused either problem, but in this case they suspect an internal seal might have been damaged when the umbilical was connected, disconnected and then reconnected when Endeavour was moved from pad 39B to 39A last month. In any case, the seal in question was replaced and engineers are hopeful the quick-disconnect fitting will be leak free the second time around.
If all goes well, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra will begin strapping in around 2:20 a.m. Wednesday to await liftoff.
The goal of Endeavour's 16-day mission is to attach a sophisticated experiment platform to a Japanese research module, to replace aging solar array batteries, to store critical spare parts on the space station for future use and to replace one of the lab's six crew members. Kopra will remain behind aboard the station when Endeavour departs and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, launched to the complex last March, will return to Earth in his place.
Here is a timeline of major events in the shuttle's countdown to launch (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT Tue 06/16/09 01:15 PM......Resume countdown 01:45 PM......Pad clear of non-essential personnel 01:35 PM......Hydraulic power unit bite test 02:25 PM......Fuel cell activation 03:15 PM......Booster joint heater activation 03:45 PM......Master events controller test 04:00 PM......Tanking weather update 04:45 PM......Final fueling preps; launch area clear 05:15 PM......Red crew assembled 06:00 PM......Fuel cell integrity checks complete 06:15 PM......Begin 2-hour built-in hold (T-minus 6 hours) 06:25 PM......Safe-and-arm circuit test 06:45 PM......Crew wakeup 07:15 PM......External tank ready for loading 07:40 PM......Mission management team tanking meeting 07:45 PM......Crew medical checks 08:15 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 6 hours) 08:15 PM......LO2, LH2 transfer line chill down 08:25 PM......Main propulsion system chill down 08:25 PM......LH2 slow fill 08:55 PM......LO2 slow fill 09:00 PM......Hydrogen engine cutoff sensors go wet 09:05 PM......LO2 fast fill 09:08 PM......Crew medical checks 09:15 PM......LH2 fast fill 11:10 PM......LH2 topping 11:15 PM......LH2 replenish 11:15 PM......LO2 replenish 11:15 PM......Begin 2-hour 30-minute built-in hold (T-minus 3 hours) 11:15 PM......Closeout crew to white room 11:15 PM......External tank in stable replenish mode 11:30 PM......Astronaut support personnel comm checks 11:55 PM......Crew photo op (recorded) Wed 06/17/09 12:00 AM......Pre-ingress switch reconfig 12:30 AM......NASA TV coverage begins 01:18 AM......Final crew weather briefing 01:28 AM......Crew suit up begins 01:45 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 01:50 AM......Astronauts leave crew quarters 02:20 AM......Astronauts strap in 03:10 AM......Astronaut comm checks 03:35 AM......Hatch closure 04:05 AM......White room closeout 04:25 AM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 04:35 AM......NASA test director countdown briefing 04:35 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 04:36 AM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 04:40 AM......KSC area clear to launch 04:46 AM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 05:16 AM......NTD launch status verification 05:31:52 AM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 05:33:22 AM...Orbiter access arm retraction 05:35:52 AM...Launch window opens 05:35:52 AM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 05:35:57 AM...Terminate LO2 replenish 05:36:52 AM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 05:36:52 AM...Guidance units to inertial 05:36:57 AM...Aerosurface confidence checks 05:37:22 AM...Main engine steering test 05:37:57 AM...LO2 tank pressurization 05:38:02 AM...Gaseous oxygen vent arm retraction 05:38:17 AM...Fuel cells to internal reactants 05:38:22 AM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 05:38:52 AM...Crew closes visors 05:38:55 AM...LH2 tank pressurization 05:40:02 AM...Orbiter to internal power 05:40:21 AM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 05:40:31 AM...SRB steering test 05:40:45 AM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 05:40:52 AM...SRB ignition (LAUNCH)
2:05 PM, 6/15/09: Shuttle Endeavour cleared for June 17 launch try; lunar orbiter delayed to June 18/19 (UPDATED at 3:45 p.m. with countdown status briefing; clarification of LRO launch options)
NASA managers today formally cleared the shuttle Endeavour for a delayed launch Wednesday on a space station assembly mission. Launch of the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was delayed to June 18 or 19 to make room for the shuttle in an effort to maximize launch opportunities for both missions.
Endeavour was grounded Saturday when a gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical seal leaked potentially dangerous vapor during fueling. Engineers replaced the seal and while the schedule is tight, NASA managers decided today to retarget the shuttle for launch at 5:40:50 a.m. EDT Wednesday.
The shuttle's countdown will be restarted at the T-minus 11-hour mark at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday and forecasters are predicting an 80 percent chance of good weather.
As it now stands, the Endeavour astronauts will have one shot at getting off the ground Wednesday. After that, the Air Force Eastern Range, which provides critical telemetry and tracking support, will reset its systems for launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Friday. In that case, Endeavour's mission likely would be delayed to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the International Space Station's orbit.
"The agreement we've made with the Range and the Atlas LRO folks is that we will have one opportunity on the 17th and then stand down and allow them to play through," said NASA Test Director Steve Payne.
"We always plan a couple of days in the future in case some unforseen thing happens and (if) we have an opportunity, we're ready. The vehicle will be ready to make multiple attempts. Our only constraint is Range right now. If for some reason the constraint were lifted, we may have other opportunities."
But as of this writing, that does not appear likely as long as the $583 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission stays on track.
A technician at pad 39A works to reconnect a hydrogen vent line
to a repaired umbilical plate on the side of shuttle Endeavour's
external tank. (Photo: NASA TV)
While the shuttle team presses ahead with work to ready Endeavour for launch, the LRO/LCROSS team is continuing processing for takeoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at launch complex 41 at the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"We will monitor shuttle's progress," said Charles Dovale, the NASA launch manager. "If shuttle were to begin their count and scrub for any reason prior to midnight (Tuesday), LRO/LCROSS and Atlas can maintain June 18 as the earliest date."
But if the shuttle stays on track, LRO will slip to June 19.
The LRO spacecraft is scheduled to map the moon's surface in unprecedented detail from an orbit around the lunar poles just 31 miles above the cratered terrain. A companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, is designed to look for evidence of water ice and other materials by crashing the Atlas 5's Centaur upper stage into a crater near the moon's south pole.
A small "shepherding satellite" will monitor the Centaur's demise, flying through the cloud of debris thrown up by the crash, before following it to a similar fate.
The primary goals of Endeavour's 16-day five-spacewalk mission are to attach an experiment platform to a Japanese research module, to replace aging solar array batteries, to mount critical spare parts on the station and to replace station flight engineer Koichi Wakata with NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra.
Endeavour's launch window opened June 13 and closes June 20. A launch on June 21 is possible, but one of the crew's spacewalks likely would have to be deleted to ensure an undocking before temperature constraints were violated.
The LRO/LCROSS launch window also closes on June 20. The decision to give the shuttle a launch opportunity Wednesday still leaves at least two opportunities to launch LRO/LCROSS before its window closes.
4:29 PM, 6/14/09: NASA aims for Wednesday shuttle launch, but official decision on Endeavour versus lunar mission deferred to Monday
NASA managers Sunday deferred making a formal decision on whether to reschedule the delayed shuttle Endeavour for launch Wednesday or whether to press ahead instead with launch of the agency's $583 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket.
But with both missions facing tight launch windows, Mission Management Team Chairman LeRoy Cain said the agency's preference was to launch Endeavour on Wednesday, if possible, to maximize the number of launch opportunities for both programs.
"If shuttle goes first on the 17th, then the most opportunities we can give LRO is two, and that would be on the 19th and 20th," Cain said. "If LRO goes first on the 17th, then the most opportunities we could get for the shuttle is one opportunity, and that would be on the 20th."
Engineers prepare a gaseous hydrogen umbilical plate for seal replacement.
A leak in the vent line umbilical grounded Endeavour Saturday.
(Photo: NASA TV)
A final decision on how to proceed must be made Monday to provide enough time for the Air Force Eastern Range, which provides required tracking and telemetry support for all rockets launched from Florida, to set up its systems to support one launch or the other.
But Cain said if no additional problems develop, and if work to repair a leaky hydrogen vent line umbilical plate on Endeavour's external tank goes smoothly, NASA likely will opt to press ahead with an attempt to launch the shuttle at 5:40:50 a.m. Wednesday.
"In plan A, which is shuttle launching on the 17th and LRO has attempts on the 19th and 20th, we have three total launch opportunities between the two missions," Cain said. "In Plan B, LRO on the 17th and shuttle on the 20th, we only have two total launch opportunities between the two missions. So from an agency standpoint, we're trying to maximize our opportunities.
"We're going to see how the processing goes. If we have some good fortune, if we have some good weather, or at least not too much bad weather, in the next 24, 36 hours, then we think it's achievable for us to get to a (shuttle launch) on the 17th."
Engineers at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center worked Sunday to replace a seal inside the vent line umbilical plate that leaked during fueling Saturday, delaying Endeavour's launch on a space station assembly mission.
At the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, United Launch Alliance engineers pressed ahead with work to ready the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for launch from complex 41 on a mission to map the moon in unprecedented detail. The LRO launch window opens Wednesday at 3:51 p.m. and closes at 4:11 p.m.
The forecast for Wednesday calls for a 70 percent chance of good weather for the shuttle's pre-dawn launch window and a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions for the lunar orbiter's window Wednesday afternoon.
"The final decision on which mission we're going to launch on the 17th is in front of us," Cain said. "We didn't make it today because we don't have to, because the Range reconfiguration requirement deadline is not until sometime tomorrow. And so we're both proceeding in parallel paths toward the 17th. If nothing changes, it looks like the preference would be to maximize the opportunities, shuttle first. Again, a decision will be made tomorrow."
If LRO is not off the ground by June 20, the flight will slip to the end of the month. If Endeavour is not off the ground by June 20 or 21 at the latest, the shuttle launch will be delayed to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
If the shuttle does indeed get the nod for a Wednesday launch try, Endeavour's interrupted countdown would resume at the T-minus 11-hour mark at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Endeavour was grounded during fueling overnight Friday when the gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical plate on the side of the shuttle's external fuel tank began leaking potentially dangerous vapors as the hydrogen section of the tank was filled.
A technician inspects the gaseous hydrogen vent line on the
shuttle Discovery's external tank. (Photo: NASA TV)
Some of the supercold liquid hydrogen propellant inside the tank constantly turns into a gas that is routed overboard through a vent line to a flare stack near the pad where it is harmlessly burned away. The vent line attaches to the tank at an umbilical plate that pulls away at liftoff.
During an attempt to launch the shuttle Discovery last March, a gaseous hydrogen leak in the umbilical plate triggered a four-day delay. Engineers were unable to duplicate the leak under ambient conditions - it only occurred when cryogenic hydrogen was filling the tank - but after replacing a critical internal seal, the umbilical worked normally and Discovery was able to take off.
A virtually identical scenario is playing out with Endeavour. Engineers were unable to duplicate the leak after the tank was drained and mission managers decided to press ahead with a seal replacement.
Launch Director Pete Nickolenko said engineers discovered small areas where the seal in question appeared to have pulled away from the external tank slightly, possibly due to exposure to cryogenic conditions. The gaps seen are similar to those found during troubleshooting of the leak that grounded Discovery in March.
Engineers are trying to figure out what caused seal problems in two of the last three shuttle flights, but in the meantime, "we are on the path of installing a new quick-disconnect and a new flight seal," Nickolenko said.
The work is expected to be finished early Tuesday.
"In summary, the team is processing on the path towards a launch attempt on the 17th," Nickolenko said. "The team is optimistic that our quick-disconnects and seal removal and replacement will fix the problem. THe schedule that we're moving toward is very tight, but it is achievable. All other turnaround activities are proceeding nominally."
3:10 AM, 6/13/09: Endeavour launch delayed at least four days; conflict with launch of lunar mission yet to be resolved
Launch of the shuttle Endeavour, grounded by a gaseous hydrogen leak during fueling Saturday, is off until Wednesday at the earliest. But because of the already planned launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite Wednesday, the shuttle team could be delayed to June 20, the last day this month Endeavour can be launched.
Mission managers plan to meet later this weekend to discuss troubleshooting and to assess their options, including negotiations with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project and the Air Force Eastern Range that provides telemetry and tracking support for all rockets launched from Florida.
"Obviously, the 17th is a range problem, there's a conflict out there with LRO/LCROSS," said Mike Moses, shuttle integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "We haven't even begun to work that yet. ... We'll start those negotiations tomorrow and see where we get, both with the Range and with the NASA payload."
In the meantime, shuttle engineers will press ahead with troubleshooting to figure out what went wrong during fueling.
Engineers began the three-hour fueling process at 9:52 p.m. Friday. As the hydrogen section of the tank fills up, some of the liquid turns into a gas that is carried away by a vent line. As Endeavour's tank was being topped off, sensors indicated higher-than-allowable levels of gaseous hydrogen at the ground umbilical plate, or GUP, that connects the vent line to the side of the shuttle's external tank.
A television view of the ground umbilical plate on the side of the
shuttle Endeavour's external tank that leaked during fueling.
(Photo: NASA TV)
The problem, which only shows up when supercold cryogenic propellants are flowing, was virtually identical to a leak in March that grounded the shuttle Discovery for four days, NASA officials said. In that case, engineers disassembled the umbilical and replaced a critical seal. While the "root cause" of the problem was never determined, the system worked normally during Discovery's subsequent launch attempt.
"We got into tanking on time," senior Launch Director Mike Leinbach said early Saturday. "Everything was going perfectly fine, per plan. But just like on the STS-119 mission, we suffered a leak at the ground umbilical carrier plate just as soon as we got into the topping part of the sequence on the hydrogen load.
"The signature was almost identical to what we had two flows ago. The guys on console cycled the valve as they did previously, they cycled the valve four times trying to clear up that leak. In the past, every now and then that'll work for us. This time, again, it didn't work for us. We were out of spec leakage at that disconnect.
"It's a four-day scrub turnaround is what we're estimating right now," he said. "That's a preliminary plan, but I would not expect it to be any shorter than that. ... It's going to be very, very similar to what we went through last time on STS-119."
Moses said engineers were surprised to encounter the same problem in two out of three launch campaigns. After the March leak, "we measured how that seal fits, we looked at it under a microscope, we looked at it under cryo conditions, we didn't really find anything that would tell us what common cause is."
"But obviously, something is going on, the second time in three flights, something is going on. So teams are being kicked off to go look at that. ... But really, our plan is going to be pretty much what it was last time, which is just R-and-R that seal and then we really have to tank again to see what happens."
That means Endeavour will be grounded until Wednesday at the earliest. But NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter currently is schedulejd for launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket at 3:51 p.m. Wednesday.
It takes the Eastern Range two days to reconfigure its systems to support a different launch. If the LRO mission stays on track and takes off Wednesday afternoon as planned, the next opportunity for Endeavour would be before dawn on June 20.
But in that case, NASA would only have one day to get Endeavour off the ground or the flight would slip to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the orbit of the International Space Station.
NASA managers want to get Endeavour off as soon as possible to avoid downstream delays for upcoming space station assembly missions as the shuttle program winds down toward retirement in 2010. But the LRO mission is a high priority as well and it's not yet clear how NASA might ultimately resolve the conflict.
"They only have a four-day window, it's a lunar rendezvous, so they have those four days and if they don't make that they have to wait two weeks before they could go again," said Moses.
"So there are two parts to that. One, we don't want them to miss their lunar rendezvous window because that's very difficult to replan around. The other thing is, the Range is kind of backing up, especially on the Atlas pad, there are a lot of payloads that are waiting for LRO to get going and having a payload that needs to wait every two weeks for its launch window to reopen could cause some problems. We're going to have those negotiations, I can't begin to foretell how they're going to go.
"We had pretty much agreed ahead of time that we would probably not bump them off the Range, but it would all depend on why we needed to scrub in the first place," Moses said. "We didn't really talk about a failure like this, we were mostly thinking weather. So we'll go and re-talk again. But I don't expect that we'll make them go away and we'll take that whole window. But if we do, we'd try the 17th and could go all the way through the 20th."
12:30 AM, 6/13/09: LAUNCH SCRUBBED
Saturday's launch of the shuttle Endeavour has been scrubbed due to a hydrogen leak at or near a gaseous hydrogen umbilical plate on the side of the external tank that leaked during a launch a launch campaign in March. The scrub was called during fueling when sensors detected higher-than-allowable levels of hydrogen.
If the problem cannot be resolved in time for launch attempts Sunday or Monday, the flight will be delayed until after the planned June 17 launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
If the lunar orbiter takes off on time, NASA may be able to make additional attempts to launch Endeavour on June 19 and 20. After that, the flight would slip to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
During the March launch of the shuttle Discovery, a gaseous hydrogen leak in the same area took four days to resolve when seals in a vent line had to be replaced and re-torqued. It is not yet clear, however, what will be needed to resolve Endeavour's problem.
Additional details will be posted as soon as possible.
10:00 PM, 6/12/09: Shuttle fueling begins
Engineers began pumping a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel into the shuttle Endeavour's external tank late Friday, setting the stage for launch Saturday at 7:17:19 a.m. There are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39A and forecasters are continuing to predict near ideal weather at launch time. The three-hour fueling process started with transfer line chilldown at 9:52 p.m. The huge tank should be topped off and in stable replenish mode by around 1 a.m. Saturday. NASA television coverage of the final hours of Endeavour's countdown is scheduled to begin at 2 a.m. Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra plan to don their bright orange pressure suits and head to the launch pad at 3:27 a.m. to begin strapping in. If all goes well, the shuttle's hatch will be closed a few minutes past 5 a.m.
12:40 PM, 6/12/09: Shuttle Endeavour prepped for fueling
A protective gantry was rolled away from the shuttle Endeavour today, exposing the orbiter to view atop launch pad 39A and setting the stage for fueling and liftoff Saturday on a space station assembly mission.
The rotating service structure, which protects the shuttle from the elements during pad processing, was pulled away at 10:39 a.m. EDT while engineers in the launch control center 3.2 miles away worked through the final day of a smooth-ticking countdown.
"They haven't had any kind of issues," said a NASA spokeswoman. "The weather has been fantastic."
Shuttle Endeavour poised for launch atop pad 39A.
(Photo: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now)
If all goes well, engineers will begin loading the shuttle's external tank with a half-million gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel starting around 9:52 p.m. The three-hour process should be complete by around 12:52 a.m. Saturday when the countdown will go into a standard two-hour 30-minute hold at the T-minus three-hour mark.
NASA television coverage is scheduled to begin at 2 a.m. and Endeavour's seven-member crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - plans to begin strapping in a few minutes before 4 a.m.
Launch is targeted for 7:17:19 a.m., roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the International Space Station's orbit. Forecasters are continuing to predict near-ideal weather for launch.
Here is a timeline of countdown highlights (in EDT; best viewed with fixed-width font):
EDT...........EVENT 12:00 PM......Final thermal protection system, debris inspection 12:00 PM......Ascent switch list configured 02:52 PM......Resume countdown 02:52 PM......Cockpit configured for launch 03:22 PM......Pad clear of non-essential personnel 03:12 PM......Hydraulic system bite test 04:02 PM......Fuel cell activation 04:52 PM......Booster joint heater activation 05:22 PM......Master events controller pre-flight bite test 05:37 PM......Tanking weather update 06:22 PM......Final fueling preps; launch area clear 06:52 PM......Red crew assembled 07:37 PM......Fuel cell integrity checks complete 07:52 PM......Begin 2-hour built-in hold (T-minus 6 hours) 08:02 PM......Safe-and-arm PIC test 08:52 PM......External tank ready for loading 09:15 PM......Mission management team tanking meeting 09:52 PM......Resume countdown (T-minus 6 hours) 09:52 PM......Liquid oxygen (LO2), liquid hydrogen (LH2) .............. transfer line chilldown 10:02 PM......Main propulsion system chill down 10:02 PM......LH2 slow fill 10:32 PM......LO2 slow fill 10:37 PM......Hydrogen low-level sensors go wet 10:42 PM......LO2 fast fill 10:52 PM......LH2 fast fill Sat 06/13/09 12:47 AM......LH2 topping 12:52 AM......LH2 replenish 12:52 AM......LO2 replenish 12:52 AM......Begin 2-hour 30-minute built-in hold (T-minus 3 hours) 12:52 AM......Closeout crew to white room 12:52 AM......External tank in stable replenish mode 01:07 AM......Astronaut support personnel comm checks 01:37 AM......Pre-ingress switch reconfig 02:00 AM......NASA TV coverage begins 02:52 AM......Final crew weather briefing 02:57 AM......Crew suit up begins 03:22 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 3 hours) 03:27 AM......Crew departs O&C building 03:57 AM......Crew ingress 04:47 AM......Astronaut comm checks 05:12 AM......Hatch closure 05:42 AM......White room closeout 06:02 AM......Begin 10-minute built-in hold (T-minus 20m) 06:12 AM......NASA test director countdown briefing 06:12 AM......Resume countdown (T-minus 20m) 06:13 AM......Backup flight computer to OPS 1 06:17 AM......KSC area clear to launch 06:23 AM......Begin final built-in hold (T-minus 9m) 06:53 AM......NTD launch status verification 07:08:19 AM...Resume countdown (T-minus 9m) 07:09:49 AM...Orbiter access arm retraction 07:12:19 AM...Launch window opens 07:12:19 AM...Hydraulic power system (APU) start 07:12:24 AM...Terminate LO2 replenish 07:13:19 AM...Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test 07:13:19 AM...IMUs to inertial 07:13:24 AM...Aerosurface test profile 07:13:49 AM...Main engine steering test 07:14:24 AM...LO2 tank pressurization 07:14:29 AM...Gaseous oxygen vent arm retraction 07:14:44 AM...Fuel cells to internal reactants 07:14:49 AM...Clear caution-and-warning memory 07:15:19 AM...Crew closes visors 07:15:22 AM...LH2 tank pressurization 07:16:29 AM...Orbiter to internal power 07:16:48 AM...Shuttle computers take control of countdown 07:16:58 AM...Booster steering test 07:17:12 AM...Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds) 07:17:19 AM...Booster ignition (LAUNCH)
3:10 PM, 6/11/09: Endeavour set for launch (mission preview)
The shuttle Endeavour is poised for blastoff Saturday on one of the most complex space station assembly missions yet attempted, a grueling 16-day flight to attach a Japanese experiment platform, deliver critical spare parts, replace massive solar array batteries and swap out a station crew member.
Five spacewalks by four astronauts will be required, along with carefully choreographed, near daily use of three robot arms, two on the station and one aboard the space shuttle, to move equipment, spare parts, experiments and spacewalkers from one work site to another.
Complicating the choreography, the station must host a combined crew of 13 - six full-time station astronauts and seven shuttle visitors - for the first time, putting the lab's life support systems, including its new water recycling system, toilets, oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers, to the test.
"It's like having your family descend on you for the holidays, right? And they're going to stay for a very long time. And they come, and they're bringing all their stuff," said Mike Moses, director of shuttle integration at the Kennedy Space Center.
But he said the combined crews are "more than ready" for the challenge, adding that with six full-time station astronauts on board, "I think what we're going to see is probably some unprecedented efficiencies" because "they know where to go, they know what the procedures are, they know how to get things done."
The Endeavour astronauts at launch pad 39A. (Photo: NASA)
"With the shuttle program ending in 2010, we had to pack the mission as much as we could. So our mission is probably reaching the limits of what one crew can do on a 16-day mission: five different spacewalks, we're basically operating at least two (robot) arms every day of the mission except for one, it is extremely intensive in the choreography that we do.
"But it is a construction mission," said Payette, making her second shuttle flight. "We are crane operators, we're construction workers, we're going to replace elements of the station, install new elements on the station, transfer equipment inside the station, we're going to disturb life for two weeks and then we're going to go home."
Lead spacewalker David Wolf, a physician-astronaut and Mir veteran making his fourth spaceflight, said the complexity of the mission is "not just from EVA (spacewalks). It's doing the EVA and robotics and the other internal transfer work that we have planned, all at once in a very complex choreography."
"It is busy, it is a sprint race for us and it's very interactive, it takes everyone (of the astronauts), mission control and the engineering teams to be with it real time, tracking as we go, to pull this off," he said.
Endeavour is scheduled for liftoff on the 127th shuttle mission at 7:17:15 a.m. Saturday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries launch pad 39A into the plane of the space station's orbit.
Joining Payette on the shuttle's upper flight deck will be veteran commander Mark Polansky, making his third flight, rookie pilot Douglas Hurley and first-time flier Christopher Cassidy, a Navy SEAL with combat experience in the caves of Afghanistan. Based on seat positions, Hurley will be the 499th individual to reach orbit and Cassidy will be the 500th.
Strapped in on the lower deck will be Wolf, physician-astronaut Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra, both making their first flights.
Kopra will trade places with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata as a member of the Expedition 20 crew, remaining behind aboard the International Space Station when Endeavour departs. Wakata, launched to the station in March aboard the shuttle Discovery, will take Kopra's place aboard the shuttle for the trip back to Earth.
"If I had to cherry pick a mission to be part of, it would be this one," Kopra, an Army helicopter pilot, told CBS News. "A fabulous space shuttle crew, it's very complex like a lot of our station missions, five EVAs using three robotic arms, transition to six-person crew and then to be part of that six-person crew and stay for a few months, I'm just really thrilled."
Along with the crew swap, the primary goals of the mission are to attach a porch-like external experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module, to equip it with three experiment packages and to hook up TV cameras, data and electrical connections. Attachment of the Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF, will complete the assembly of the station's most sophisticated laboratory suite.
The main Japanese lab module is equipped with its own airlock and its own robot arm to move experiments out to the exposed facility and back inside as needed.
"The Japanese Exposed Facility, or JEF as we tend to call it, is very impressive," Wolf said in a NASA interview. "It's a large external porch to the space station where high quality experiments can be conducted in the high vacuum of space. It's really an exceptionally valuable piece of real estate. It has its own robotic arm, the ability to do observations of the Earth and of the sky, astrophysics experiments, a very wide range of abilities."
Protecting against failures down the road, the astronauts also plan to mount a spare S-band antenna assembly on an external storage platform, along with a spare cooling system pump module and a replacement drive unit for the station's robot arm transporter.
In one of the more challenging tasks faced by the spacewalkers, six 375-pound batteries will be replaced in the station's oldest set of solar arrays on the far left end of the lab's main power truss. The battery replacement will be spread over two spacewalks.
"The P6 batteries have been up there since December of 2000, so they've been up there quite a while," said Kirk Shireman, deputy director of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center. "They're reaching the end of their life (and) we need to swap them out. We'll be doing that for the first time, it's very challenging."
The spacewalkers also will attempt to rewire a gyroscope circuit, install another television camera to provide additional external views and deploy a jammed external storage mount on the left side of the power truss. The crew plans to deploy two others on the right side of the station that are needed to hold spare parts and equipment being stockpiled as the shuttle program winds down toward retirement in 2010.
Finally, the astronauts will make preparations for the debut flight of a Japanese cargo ship in September. The HTV spacecraft is designed to be plucked out of open space by the station's robot arm for docking to the Harmony module's upper port.
Wolf and Kopra will carry out the mission's first spacewalk, followed by EVAs with Wolf and Marshburn, Wolf and Cassidy and then a final two excursions by Cassidy and Marshburn. Polansky, Hurley and Payette will operate the shuttle and station robot arms, moving from the orbiter to the station and back as needed, assisted by Wakata.
In several cases, robot arm operations and equipment transfers will be going on while the spacewalkers are doing something else at a different location.
"It's an extremely challenging, complex mission," Polansky told CBS News. "The robotics that are interlaced with the spacewalks are complicated, we do complicated robotics every single day of the mission, starting with the first full day in orbit all the way through. We just never get to come up for air. It's something I think about a lot."
And with a combined crew of 13 aboard the space station, the pace will be hectic to say the least.
"It'll be very interesting to see how we're going to adapt to that many people inside a relatively small vehicle," Payette said. "I mean, it's very roomy compared to the comfort of the space shuttle, but it's still a very confined environment. There will be growing pains, how to adapt to one another, not to step on one another, not to all speak on the communications loops at the same time.
"But I think it'll be awesome for the first time to have that many people in space. It will really be the beginning of a permanent settlement in space, because that's what it will be in the future and we're trying it out for the first time. It'll be very interesting, the social aspects of having that many people on board from different nationalities."
Said Wolf: "We're kind of having a population explosion in space, you know, with the 13 or so people will be up there. That will be interesting. ... We're going to have to learn to operate and keep all that organized. And these are busy schedules, with a lot of activity going on, so it's important that we learn how to handle that, manage it."
Endeavour's road to orbit began in April when the shuttle was hauled out to launch pad 39B to serve as an emergency rescue vehicle for the crew of the shuttle Atlantis, launched May 11 on a fifth and final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Toward the end of Atlantis' mission, engineers started a countdown for Endeavour to protect against the possibility of damage spotted late in the Hubble mission. When it became clear a rescue flight would not be needed, the countdown was halted and engineers moved Endeavour to pad 39A for work to ready the ship for launch Saturday.
Other than interruptions prompted by stormy weather, Endeavour's processing has been relatively smooth. While engineers were unable to trace the cause of an avionics short circuit that knocked out a redundant flight control system during Atlantis' launch, NASA managers said Endeavour's wiring is newer and has been inspected more recently. No similar problems are expected.
Assuming an on-time launch, Endeavour will dock with the space station around 3:55 a.m. on Monday, June 15. The mission will be conducted during the deep overnight hours in the United States, with the five spacewalks beginning between 1:42 a.m. and 10:12 p.m. on June 16, 18, 20, 21 and 24. Undocking is expected around 8:11 p.m. on June 26 with landing back at the Kennedy Space Center scheduled for 12:18 a.m. on June 29.
"I sum it up this way," Payette said. "Six people, five EVAs, three (robot) arms, seven (payload) handoffs, 16 days. It is going to be an action-packed flight. So if you're bored, please tune in."
Endeavour's mission is being flown against a backdrop of high anxiety as NASA's post-Columbia drive to develop a new rocket system to replace the space shuttle comes under renewed scrutiny. The first public hearing by a presidential panel charged with assessing NASA's manned space program is scheduled for June 17.
The Bush administration ordered NASA to complete the space station and retire the shuttle by the end of 2010 to free up funds to pay for development of a new rocket system that would be safer and cheaper to operate. The ultimate goal of the program was to establish Antarctica-style bases on the moon beginning in the early 2020s.
Under the leadership of former Administrator Mike Griffin, NASA opted to develop the Ares 1 rocket, using a shuttle solid-fuel booster as a first stage and a hydrogen-fueled second stage, to launch Orion crew capsules to low-Earth orbit. A giant unmanned rocket called the Ares 5 is envisioned to propel lunar landers and attached Orion spacecraft to the moon.
But the Bush administration provided little in the way of additional funding to pay for the new rockets and NASA expects a five-year gap between the end of shuttle operations and the debut of Ares 1/Orion. In the interim, U.S. astronauts will have to hitch rides to the space station aboard Russian Soyuz ferry craft.
Despite the Apollo heritage of the new upper stage and the remarkable safety record of space shuttle boosters - one failure in 127 shuttle missions, or 252 booster flights - critics have relentlessly attacked the Ares/Orion architecture, arguing that alternatives based on heavy lift Delta or Atlas rockets, or a new family of liquid-fueled boosters, makes more sense.
Emotions run high on all sides, fueled by the internet and bloggers, the perception of technical problems with the Ares program, distrust of the NASA bureaucracy and supporters of commercial rocket agendas.
The Obama administration recently ordered an independent assessment of NASA's manned space program, a review headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, that is expected to be completed by August.
In the meantime, the White House Office of Management and Budget has deleted $3.1 billion from NASA's projected budget through 2013. That money is needed to begin development of the Ares 5 moon rocket and without it, NASA managers say, the moon program will be deferred if not eliminated.
Administration officials say money can be returned to the projected budget depending on the conclusions of the Augustine review. But for now, the future of NASA's manned space program is uncertain, including use of the International Space Station. As it now stands, U.S. participation in the project will end in 2015 unless additional funding is approved.
NASA has resolutely moved ahead with its ongoing programs and launch of a sophisticated satellite to begin mapping the moon in unprecedented detail is scheduled for June 17, the same day the Augustine panel will hold its first public hearing.
The Endeavour astronauts will be asleep, facing their second spacewalk in the deep overnight hours as NASA presses ahead with a final eight shuttle missions to complete the space station and stock it with the supplies and spare parts needed to keep it viable after the shuttle is retired.
Endeavour's mission comes on the heels of the May 27 launch of a Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried three additional crew members to the space station, boosting the lab's full-time crew to six for the first time.
Station commander Gennady Padalka, NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt and Wakata were joined by cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk.
"Six-person crew is a milestone in the history of the International Space Station," Thirsk said before launch. "In a big way, the International Space Station will be able to fulfill it's primary purpose, which is to function as a world-class orbiting laboratory for medical science and materials science."
The lab complex has been stocked with enough food to last the expanded crew through October even if subsequent shuttle and unmanned resupply missions get delayed. Oxygen is generated on board by U.S. and Russian systems and fresh water is delivered by shuttle crews and automated Russian supply ships.
But in a major milestone, a sophisticated water recycling system was installed late last year and, after startup problems were resolved, the new hardware was cleared for everyday use. The system recycles condensate and urine from a U.S. toilet in the Destiny lab module, generating ultra-pure water for drinking, crew hygiene and oxygen generation.
The water recycling system will be critical to sustaining a six-person crew after the space shuttle is retired late next year.
"It will be a challenge for everybody to make sure we can sustain six persons on orbit," De Winne said before launch. "I think it shows a great example to the rest of the world that if nations want to work together for something great, for something wonderful, for something for the future of our kids, that we can achieve incredible things."
Coping with a combined crew of 13 during Endeavour's mission will be another challenge, one that will pose a severe test of the station's life support systems.
"Oxygen, plenty of oxygen supplied by the O2 supplies on board the shuttle, we have the oxygen generation system on board the U.S. segment, which is functioning, and the Elektron, which is the Russian system. So oxygen production is not an issue," Shireman said.
"Carbon dioxide, we have the Vozdukh, which is the Russian carbon dioxide scrubber, we have the CDRA, the carbon dioxide removal assembly aboard the U.S. segment. Those two together cannot take care of 13 completely, so we'll actually be utilizing two lithium hydroxide canisters on board the shuttle every day to keep the carbon dioxide within its limits. We have a stockpile plus margin aboard ISS, so that's not an issue.
"In terms of food preparation, we have basically three galleys, the shuttle has a galley, the ISS in the U.S. segment has a galley and then there's the Russian segment galley and food warmers, all those things are functional. We'll have plenty of food preparation capability so we don't expect any difficulties there.
"To the best of our ability, we've tried to think of all those things that having additional people on board dictate," Shireman said. "I think we have a good plan at this point in time. I expect we'll learn and adapt during the mission as we see it unfold."
As for bathroom management, Shireman said he did not expect any problems.
"We've been planning for this for quite some time," he said. "We have the whole thing choreographed. When the shuttle crew arrives, there's actually three functioning bathrooms, so there's actually more bathrooms per person than we've had in the past, if you think about it."
Up until now, the station's science output has been limited because assembly was ongoing and the lab's three full-time crew members were busy simply maintaining the growing complex. With a crew of six, the time devoted to scientific research is expected to triple, jumping from 20 hours a week to more than 70.
"We've been building the International Space Station for 10 years now and we've finally gotten to a point now where it has some incredible laboratory facilities and six people on board the station to do some science," Thirsk said. "So you're going to see over 1,000 hours (in the near term) of crew time devoted to research and development."
More than 100 experiments are planned for the Expedition 20 crew.
"We're going to be doing life science work, we're going to be doing medical operations, plant biology, fluid physics, materials processing, exploiting this weightless environment of space," Thirsk said. "We're ... doing some great, fundamental science for preparing humans for the next venture into space."
But for now, it's not clear what that next venture will be.
11:30 AM, 6/10/09: Countdown begins; weather improves to 90 percent 'go' for Saturday launch
The countdown began today for the shuttle Endeavour's launch Saturday on a complex 16-day space station assembly mission. There are no technical problems of any significance at launch complex 39A and forecasters are predicting a 90 percent chance of good weather.
"The launch team and the flight crew are all very excited to be in launch countdown, we've worked hard to get here and we're all eager to get Endeavour and her crew on the way to the International Space Station," said NASA Test Director Steve Payne.
"Right now, Endeavour's in great shape, the launch countdown is progressing nominally, the weather looks like it might cooperate and we are ready to fly this mission."
Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra flew to the Kennedy Space Center from Houston late Monday to prepare for launch.
The countdown began on time at 9 a.m. today, setting up a launch attempt at 7:17:15 a.m. EDT Saturday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries launch pad 39A into the plane of the space station's orbit. The shuttle has enough power to launch five minutes to either side of that "in-plane" time, but NASA targets the middle of the 10-minute window to maximize ascent performance.
Forecasters are predicting virtually ideal weather Saturday, with light winds and only a 10 percent chance of cumulus clouds that could raise a concern about rocket-triggered lightning. NASA's emergency runways in New Mexico, California, Spain and France are all expected to be "go" for launch.
On Sunday and Monday, the forecast drops to 80 percent go, with cumulus clouds and showers possible within 20 nautical miles of the Shuttle Landing Facility. Conditions at three of NASA's five backup landing sites also are expected to deteriorate, but at least one site should be available in both Europe and the United States.
"Right now, weather's looking very good for launch time," said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Barrett, a forecaster with the 45th Weather Squadron at nearby Patrick Air Force Base. "I think the weather is cooperating very well for us and we should be good to go."
NASA only has three days to get Endeavour off the pad or the flight will be delayed until after the planned June 17 launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
If the launch is delayed, and if the lunar orbiter takes off on time, NASA may be able to make additional attempts to launch Endeavour on June 19 and 20. After that, the flight would slip to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
3:15 PM, 6/9/09: Endeavour set for start of countdown Wednesday; weather 80 percent 'go' for Saturday launch (COMBINING with earlier story about crew arrival Monday)
Engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are gearing up to start the shuttle Endeavour's countdown Wednesday, with forecasters predicting an 80 percent chance of good weather for launch Saturday on a space station assembly mission.
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - flew to the Kennedy Space Center from Houston late Monday, landing at the shuttle runway just before midnight.
"Thanks for coming out at the lovely hour of just past, let me see, what time is it, midnight here at KSC," Polansky told reporters. "The STS-127 crew, we're absolutely thrilled to be down here in preparation for Saturday's launch of Endeavour."
NASA Test Director Charlene Blackwell-Thompson said today there are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39A that would interfere with the start of Endeavour's countdown at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Endeavour's liftoff is targeted for 7:17:15 a.m. Saturday.
"It's only been a little over a week since we've been at pad A," said Blackwell-Thompson. "We arrived at pad A on May 31 and last week, the flight crew was in town to do the terminal countdown demonstration test. We completed that Thursday, where we rehearsed late countdown operations, and that all went very well."
Over the weekend, "we finished up our payload activities, all our testing work is complete, our closeouts were finished up on Saturday and we closed the payload bay doors on Saturday afternoon. Our ordnance operations also were worked over the weekend, we completed them Sunday and we began putting on the flight doors, they were completed yesterday, and all of the aft closeouts, aft confidence checks, are now complete. I'm happy to report both the midbody and the aft are closed out for flight."
The shuttle's main propulsion system was pressurized early today and "in summary, all of our systems are in great shape, our launch countdown preparations are complete, I have no issues to report,' she said. "The STS-127 flight crew, Endeavour and the launch team are all ready to proceed."
Forecasters with the 45th Weather Squadron at nearby Patrick Air Force Base are predicting an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will issue its initial forecast Wednesday.
As it now stands, NASA only has three days to get Endeavour off the pad or the flight will be delayed until after the planned June 17 launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
If the shuttle launch is delayed past Monday, and if the lunar orbiter takes off on time next Wednesday, NASA may be able to make additional attempts to launch Endeavour on June 19 and 20. After that, the flight would slip to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
The goals of the 16-day five-spacewalk mission are to deliver and attach a Japanese experiment platform; to replace aging solar array batteries; to deliver critical spare parts; and to ferry Kopra to the lab complex to replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
"Thank you for taking the time to come and see us at this ungodly hour," Payette told reporters at the shuttle runway late Monday. "This represents, of course, one of those flights where we have to shift in a completely different time zone in order to synch up with the space station. And for that, we become a bit of a stealth flight."
The mission will be conducted in the deep overnight U.S. time with the first of the crew's five spacewalks beginning around 1:40 a.m. on June 16. The astronauts have been sleep shifting to prepare for the overnight work hours and all seven said they were eager to take off.
"I just think it's really incredible to be part of a team that has six people in orbit now on the International Space Station and when we get there, we'll have 13 on board for the very first time," Polansky said. "We'll have all of the major international partner space agencies represented at once. And if that's not enough, we're going to be challenged with five spacewalks, coupled with complicated robotics using three different (mechanical) arms, all at the same time.
"So we're really happy to be a part of that," Polansky said. "As astronauts, we often get a lot of the spotlight, but this mission is a really great reminder of the countless number of men and women around the globe who work so tirelessly to go ahead and prepare missions like this and others, and that's something that I think we're all really proud to be a part of."
03:05 PM, 6/4/09: Astronauts practice countdown procedures; station spacewalk on tap early Friday
The Endeavour astronauts, wearing bright orange pressure suits, strapped in aboard the shuttle today for a dress-rehearsal countdown that sets the stage for launch June 13 on a space station assembly mission. The station crew, meanwhile, prepared for a spacewalk early Friday, the first of two needed to rig the Russian Zvezda module for attachment of a new docking port.
The Endeavour astronauts pose for pictures before heading to launch
pad 39A Thursday for a dress-rehearsal countdown.
(Photo: NASA)
At the Kennedy Space Center, the practice countdown highlighting the crew's terminal countdown demonstration test, or TCDT, ended with the simulated ignition and shutdown of the shuttle's main engines.
"I personally have always thought it's a really important, necessary part of what the entire team does," commander Mark Polansky said Wednesday. "It focuses the team, it certainly gets them to look at a lot of things they're going to see on launch day. If there are going to be any glitches, now is the time to find it out.
"From the crew perspective, for some people, they've never, ever gotten up to a vehicle and strapped in one before. So, I think it gives you a certain familiarity that will pay dividends when you do it for real."
Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, Canadian flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra planned to fly back to Houston late today and to enter medical quarantine Saturday.
If all goes well, the astronauts will fly back to Florida next week for the start of their countdown at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Launch is targeted for 7:17 a.m. June 13.
The primary goals of the five-spacewalk mission are to deliver an external experiment platform that will be attached to the Japanese Kibo module, to deliver critical spare parts and to replace a set of aging solar array batteries. In addition, Kopra will replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will return to Earth aboard Endeavour.Aboard the space station Thursday, commander Gennady Padalka and NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt prepared for a spacewalk early Friday to install docking system antennas on the upper port of the Russian Zvezda command module. Padalka and Barratt plan a second, internal spacewalk Wednesday to make interior modifications.
A new docking module, known as MRM-2, is scheduled for launch atop a Soyuz rocket on Nov. 10. Once attached to the station, it will add a fourth Russian docking port to support the increased traffic required by a full-time crew of six.
For Friday's five-hour excursion, Padalka, call sign EV-1, will be wearing an upgraded Russian Orlan MK suit with red stripes while Barratt, EV-2, will be wearing a suit with blue stripes. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 2:45 a.m. EDT.
This will be the 124th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the fifth so far this year, the seventh overall for Padalka and the first for Barratt. Going into Friday's excursion, more than 80 astronauts and cosmonauts representing the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Sweden had logged 775 hours of space station EVA time.
The KURS antennas being installed by Padalka and Barratt are passive elements in a system that will enable the MRM-2 docking module to home in on the station, line up and dock at the zenith port of the Zvezda command module.
The station currently has three Russian docking ports: an Earth-facing port on the forward end of the Zarya module and two on Zvezda, one facing Earth and the other at the rear of the lab complex.At present, two three-seat Soyuz lifeboats are docked at the station, one at Zarya and the other at Zvezda's aft port. An unmanned Progress supply ship is attached to the Pirs docking module on Zvezda's Earth-facing port. The MRM-2 docking module scheduled for launch in November will go on the zenith port directly above and across from Pirs.
Yet another docking module, known as MRM-1, is scheduled for launch next year aboard a space shuttle. It will be attached to Zarya's downward facing port, providing the clearance needed for planned U.S. Orion crew capsules to dock at a downward-facing port in the station's U.S. Unity module.
Two spacewalks are planned to outfit the upper docking port of the
Russian Zvezda module for attachment of a new docking module.
(Photo: NASA)
During the upcoming spacewalks, the station crew will be split up to make sure everyone has access to a Soyuz lifeboat at all times. Wakata will join Barratt and Padalka in the Russian segment of the station, with access to the Soyuz docked at the command module's aft port, while Frank De Winne, Robert Thirsk and Roman Romanenko remain in the forward U.S. segment of the lab, with access to the Soyuz docked to the Zarya module's Earth-facing port. The hatchway between Zarya and Zvezda will be closed.
"The antennas installed on the station are the passive system where the active antenna are on the arriving vehicle," said David Korth, NASA's Expedition 20 spacewalk director. "For this particular EVA, the first set of antennas ... are for range, range-rate and roll misalignment. The second antenna block to be installed (is) a relative attitude measurement antenna.
"So we'll be installing both of these antennas, routing all the cabling externally. Several weeks ago, the crew began performing internal cable routing so at the end of this EVA, these will be functional antennas. In fact, toward the end of the EVA we will be performing a quick continuity check to verify all the signal paths are correct."
At the end of the spacewalk, Barratt will anchor himself to a telescoping Russian crane and Padalka will extend his crewmate up above Zvezda's zenith port. Barratt then will photograph the area to help Russian engineers confirm the new antennas are properly oriented.
"Once he takes the photos, he will come back in," Korth said. "At this point, this is when the Russian ground team will perform the continuity checks of the antennas to make sure everything is wired correctly. And then the crew will head back into the Pirs docking compartment, thus ending EVA-22."
NASA graphic showing Barratt, on the end of the Russian Strela boom,
photographing the Zvezda module's zenith port.
(Photo: NASA)
For the spacewalk Wednesday, Gennady and Barratt will remain inside the Zvezda module's forward transfer compartment, sealed off from the rest of the station and working in vacuum while connected to umbilicals. The ball-shaped transfer compartment connects Zvezda to the Zarya module and features upward- and downward-facing hatches. Pirs is attached to the Earth-facing port while the new MRM-2 module will be attached to the zenith port.
The goal of the second EVA on June 10 is to install a docking cone on the zenith port to complete preparations for the new module's arrival in November. The internal spacewalk is expected to last about an hour. A few hours after its conclusion, NASA plans to start Endeavour's countdown to launch.
07:45 PM, 6/3/09: Shuttle Endeavour cleared for June 13 launch; astronauts review emergency procedures; practice countdown on tap
While the shuttle Endeavour's crew reviewed emergency procedures at the launch pad Wednesday, NASA managers held an executive-level flight readiness review and cleared the ship for blastoff June 13, at 7:17:15 a.m., on a complex space station assembly mission.
NASA Launch Director Pete Nickolenko, directing his first shuttle launch campaign, said there is no contingency time left in the schedule to handle unexpected problems. But so far, the shuttle's systems are checking out normally and the team is optimistic about starting the countdown next Wednesday, at 9 a.m., for a launch try one week from Saturday.
"We're running on all cylinders right now," Nickolenko said. "We're hitting our stride. The pace that we are challenged to work towards to make the manifest is going to require us to keep on pace and keep that work flowing. ... But it's all doable, manageable, the teams are seasoned and I believe they're focused."
Over the past month, NASA launched the shuttle Atlantis on a successful mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, the Russian space agency launched an additional three crew members to the International Space Station, Endeavour was moved from pad 39B to pad 39A for final processing and Atlantis was returned to Florida from California where it landed May 24.
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - flew to Florida Tuesday and reviewed emergency procedures at the pad Wednesday. All seven plan to strap in aboard the shuttle Thursday for a dress-rehearsal countdown.
Endeavour's crew at pad 39A. (Photo: William Harwood)
Aboard the space station, meanwhile, commander Gennady Padalka and NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt plan to carry out two spacewalks, one Friday and the other next Wednesday, to rig the Zvezda command module for the eventual attachment of another docking port.
"It's been a really amazing schedule over the last couple of months," Polansky said today at the launch pad. "It's tight from the standpoint that we're here in Florida to climb in the vehicle tomorrow. We're going to go back home, take a day off, go into quarantine Saturday, come back down here Monday night and launch next Saturday. I mean, that's really tight.
"But I know from a training perspective, we're ready," he said. "It would be great if we could just climb in and go tomorrow, but I think our families would be a little upset because they're not here!"
The 16-day flight features five spacewalks to install an external experiment platform on the Japanese Kibo research module, to swap out batteries in the station's oldest set of solar arrays and to deliver critical spare parts. Endeavour also will ferry Kopra to the lab complex for an extended stay and bring Japanese station flier Koichi Wakata back to Earth.
Endeavour was hauled to pad 39B in April to serve as a rescue vehicle for the crew of Atlantis. In the Hubble Space Telescope's orbit, the Atlantis astronauts could not seek safe haven aboard the space station if any major problem developed that might prevent a safe re-entry.
Engineers actually started a countdown for Endeavour late in Atlantis' mission to keep the rescue option open as long as possible. As it turned out, no such flight was needed and after bad weather blocked multiple attempts to bring Atlantis back to Florida, the ship was diverted to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
NASA flight directors and mission operations managers, at the Kennedy
Space Center for a flight readiness review, watch Atlantis' return to Florida.
(Photo: Ben Cooper/Spaceflightnow.com)
But the wisdom of processing Endeavour in parallel was made clear during a post-landing inspection of Atlantis. Space debris, a greater threat at Hubble's high altitude, apparently hit one of the shuttle's braking rocket nozzles, damaging the inner and outer surfaces. The shuttle spent much of the mission flying tail first to shield more sensitive areas from debris impacts.
As it now stands, NASA will only have three days to get Endeavour off the pad or the flight will be delayed until after the planned June 17 launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Going into the campaign, Nickolenko said the team would make two back-to-back attempts if necessary, but not three.
If the launch is delayed, and if the lunar orbiter takes off on time, NASA may be able to make additional attempts to launch Endeavour on June 19 and 20. After that, the flight would slip to July 11 because of temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit.
"The folks have done just a tremendous job getting ready to go fly again," said Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of space operations at NASA headquarters. "The Atlantis mission was a tremendous success and it really enabled us to be here. As we went through the flight readiness review today, it became really obvious that Atlantis was a very clean vehicle, it had very few anomalies. ... We didn't have a lot to talk about. The vehicle was really in great shape."
One question mark after Atlantis' flight was what caused the failure of an avionics box just before liftoff May 11. The box in question, one of four used to control the movement of the shuttle's elevons and rudder-speedbrake assembly, shut down moments after main engine ignition, the apparent victim of a short circuit.
The failure did not affect the shuttle's climb to orbit or its re-entry. But engineers wanted to make sure the issue was understood in case it was the result of some fleet-wide problem, or wiring deficiency, that might affect Endeavour.
An inspection of the wiring leading into and out of the box in question was carried out at Edwards and no obvious shorts were found. Likewise, a resistance test found no issues that would confirm a short. Engineers now plan to inspect the box itself as soon as it can be removed from Atlantis' aft avionics bay.
In the meantime, a detailed analysis was carried out indicating the odds of a similar problem aboard Endeavour were sufficiently remote to press ahead for flight. Unless an obvious problem is found aboard Atlantis that would raise a concern for Endeavour, the launch team plans to proceed with flight.
Another issue that was discussed at the flight readiness review was the loss of foam insulation from Atlantis' external tank that impacted the ship's forward right wing in an area known as the chine. While the debris caused minor impact damage to several heat-shield tiles, it did not pose any threat to the crew and no in-flight repairs were needed.
But because the foam came from the upper liquid oxygen section of the tank, which poses more of a threat to the shuttle's heat shield, engineers are paying close attention to make sure the issue is understood and that it's not a sign of a more serious problem.
Most other foam losses experienced in recent flights have come from the liquid hydrogen section of the tank, caused by temperature changes as the fuel is consumed. In those cases, foam releases occur late in the ascent, after the shuttle is out of the thick lower atmosphere, and pose little or no threat to the heat shield.
That mechanism does not explain foam losses from foam on the oxygen tank, or its main feed line, like that seen during Atlantis' ascent.
"The other foam losses we've seen have been back on the hydrogen tank, where it's the cryo-pumping foam loss that occurs typically late," Gerstenmaier said. "If foam comes off in this area (of the oxygen tank), it's going to come back to the chine area like we saw on Atlantis, or it'll come back to the (wing leading edge) area. So this is a very sensitive area from a transport standpoint.
"So again, it's not out of family. In fact, it's consistent with what we've seen before, there's no real indications here we've got a problem. But in the spirit of preventing a future problem, (we're looking at) is there something we can learn from this?"
11:30 AM, 6/1/09: Atlantis heads for Florida
The space shuttle Atlantis, bolted to the back of a NASA 747 jumbo jet, began its two-day trip from California to the Kennedy Space Center Monday at 11:06 a.m. EDT. Atlantis closed out a Hubble Space Telescope repair mission May 24 with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., because of stormy weather in Florida.
Atlantis begins its trip back to the Kennedy Space Center
(Photo: NASA TV)
Engineers are anxious to get Atlantis back to Florida to troubleshoot an avionics failure during launch May 11. The problem with a redundant aerosurface actuator control box caused no problems for Atlantis, but engineers want to make sure there is no generic wiring issue that could affect the shuttle Endeavour, scheduled for launch June 13.
12:00 PM, 5/31/09: Shuttle Endeavour moved to pad 39A
The space shuttle Endeavour was moved from pad 39B to nearby pad 39A Sunday for launch June 13 on NASA's next space station assembly mission. The 3.4-mile trip atop an Apollo-era crawler-transporter began at 3:16 a.m. and was completed by 11:42 a.m.
The shuttle Endeavour reaches launch pad 39A
(Photo: NASA TV)
Endeavour's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra - plans to fly to the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday to review launch pad emergency procedures and to participate in a practice countdown Thursday.
NASA managers, meanwhile, will hold an executive-level flight readiness review Wednesday to assess Endeavour's launch processing. One item on the agenda will be a discussion of a presumed short circuit during the shuttle Atlantis' launch May 11 that knocked out one of four avionics boxes used to control the hydraulic positioning of the shuttle's elevons and rudder/speedbrake.
The short had no impact on Atlantis' launch or re-entry, but engineers want to make sure there is no generic wiring problem that could affect Endeavour.
Atlantis was diverted to a California landing May 24 and its cross-country ferry flight back to Florida was not expected to begin until Monday. As a result, engineers will have little time to inspect Atlantis and trace the failure before the start of Endeavour's countdown to blastoff.
NASA only has three days to get Endeavour off the ground in June or the flight will be delayed one month. The short window is the result of a conflict with another high-priority mission - launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 17 - and temperature constraints due to the space station's orbit.
4:00 PM, 5/29/09: NASA managers decide to press ahead with Endeavour launch preparations; June 13 launch target still possible, officials say, despite processing delays
NASA managers met Friday and decided to press ahead with work to ready the shuttle Endeavour for launch June 13 on a five-spacewalk space station assembly mission while continuing an analysis of a short circuit that knocked an avionics unit off line during the shuttle Atlantis' liftoff May 11.
An executive-level flight readiness review is planned for next Wednesday to assess the status of launch processing and to set an official launch date. While the short circuit analysis is not complete, engineers are optimistic it will have no impact on Endeavour's launch.
The weather, however, is another matter. To make the June 13 target, Endeavour must be moved from pad 39B, where it was on stand-by for emergency rescue duty during Atlantis' Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, to pad 39A on Sunday.
Rollover had been targeted for Friday, but it has now slipped to Sunday, primarily because of stormy weather that delayed rollover preparations. With no contingency time left in the processing schedule to handle unexpected problems, another rollover delay - or any other significant issue - likely would delay launch.
As it now stands, NASA only has three days to get Endeavour off the ground in June or the flight will be delayed one month. The short window is the result of a conflict with another high-priority mission - launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 17 - and temperature constraints due to the space station's orbit.
If Endeavour misses the three-day June launch window, the flight will slip to around July 11, based on the most recent analysis of the station's trajectory.
Along with moving Endeavour to pad 39A Sunday, NASA also plans to begin the shuttle Atlantis's ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the orbiter landed last weekend.
Because of its diversion to California and the time needed to prepare the ship for its cross country flight atop NASA's 747 transport jet, engineers have not yet gained access to the aft avionics bay where aerosurface actuator No. 1, the unit that failed during launch, is located.
Based on telemetry, engineers believe a short circuit in the wiring leading to or from the box triggered the failure, not a problem with the box itself. The unit is part of a redundant system used to move the shuttle's elevons and rudder/speedbrake and its failure had no impact on Atlantis' climb to space or subsequent re-entry.
But engineers want to make sure the short is not the result of any kind of fleet-wide wiring problem. As a result, ASA-1 will be pulled from Atlantis after its return to Florida next week and subjected to inspections and electrical tests to help isolate the issue.
Built to replace the shuttle Challenger, Endeavour is NASA's newest space shuttle and engineers are confident its wiring is in good shape. But if any problems are found, engineers will re-assess the launch schedule and what, if anything, might be needed to clear the ship for flight.
Hoping for the best, Atlantis commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley, flight engineer Julie Payette, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Thomas Marshburn and space station flight engineer Timothy Kopra plan to fly to Florida Tuesday to review launch pad emergency procedures and to participate in a practice countdown Thursday.
The primary goals of Endeavour's mission are to attach an external experiment platform to the Japanese Kibo laboratory, to replace batteries on the space station's oldest set of solar arrays, to deliver critical spare parts and to perform a variety of get-ahead tasks for upcoming assembly flights.
The space station program achieved a major milestone Friday with arrival of three fresh crew members, boosting the lab's full-time crew to six.
Before Endeavour's arrival, Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka and Michael Barratt plan to carry out two spacewalks June 5 and 10 - the day Endeavour's countdown is expected to begin - to prepare the Russian Zvezda command module for the attachment of a new docking port.