Author: Rainer Gerhards

I just read on the NASA space shuttle homepage:

Sept. 23 at 5:30 p.m. EDT
The orbiter Discovery is parked in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building after rolling over from the Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3. First motion was at 12:22 p.m. EDT. This marks a prelaunch milestone.

Overnight Discovery will be rotated to a vertical position, hoisted and attached to its external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters for its upcoming mission, STS-120, to the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Discovery will roll out to Launch Pad 39A approximately one week after rollover. The launch of STS-120 is currently targeted for Oct. 23.

This is excellent news. Looks like my reservations are still right.

But what does this all mean? And why was it necessary?

Orbiters are parked in special, smaller buildings called “orbiter processing facility” or OPF. This is where the majority of work is being done on them. For example, the strut repair happened there. As far as I know, orbiters are immediately moved to the OPF when they have arrived in Kennedy Space Center. Then they are checked, repairs conducted and prepared for the next mission. They are not, mated to either the tank or the solid rocket boosters – the OPF is simply too small to do that.

Instead, that is done in the “Vehicle Assembly Building”, or VAB for short. This is a gigantic building (see picture), where the boosters and tank are mounted and the shuttle is then mated to them. As I have now learned, shuttles are typically moved over to the VAB roughly a month before launch. There the mate happens and, I assume, also some further checks.

I requires good weather to move a shuttle from the OPF to the VAB. Thus this movement can easily be delayed, especially at this time of the year (just think about Florida’s frequent afternoon thunderstorms…). This time, we obviously had no or at least very little delay – which is, why we are still on the timeline.

On the picture, you can see the shuttle strut being reassembled. That’s actually a great relief to me.

This article does a full wrap-up and analysis of the current state:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5234

As it looks, the launch date for Discovery’s STS-120 mission will only slip nominally, if at all. The engineers have done superb work today, managed the repair that was scheduled for a few days in just one morning – congrats!

To me, that means my travel plans are so far unaffected. However, there is now no buffer time left, so everything else is on the critical path. But, hey, why should something else go wrong? :-D

I see that it was right not to panic, even while a larger launch slip was in question. I guess I’ll manage to keep cool on other occasions, too (at least this is my current school of thinking ;)).

OK, enough good news for the evening.

I have just read that the repairs on Discovery’s strut are well under way.

I also found the nice picture showing how the landing gear is being disassembled. If you look closely, you can see the bottom part (right at the floor), where the tires normally sit. And right behind the head of the worker in front of the picture is the upper part of the strut, that one that is still connected to the space shuttle.

I am very glad to see these pictures, because they provide evidence that the repair seems to be on good track. I assume that there are now all needed spare parts available and work can continue to be carried out.

In the mean time, several space forums on the web report that there will probably be a slip in the launch date, but it is not expected to be extreme. So maybe I loose a day or two of “my launch” window, but I think chances are still pretty high I’ll make it. When I first heard about all that, I wondered if I should change my travel plans. Especially air travel to Orlando is a bit problematic. But today everything is unclear. If I move the dates, I’ll probably miss the launch when it is on time (and as of NASA’s official site, there still is a chance). I stay tuned…

Update: I found some new pictures, find them at http://www.gerhards.net/Gallery-sts_120_strut_repair.phtml (thumbs below).

space shuttle strut space shuttle

Yesterday, some info leaked that the shuttle … well, leaked ;) To be serious, there were reports that there is an unacceptable leak at a shuttle strut – hydraulics fluid seems to have been leaking. But yesterday the decision was made that a repair is actually needed.

Of course, it didn’t take long for all sorts of rumors to appear. Some sources even said that the October mission would be canceled and moved to January – which is as far from being true as it only can be. In fact, the NASA source quoted above does not outrule there is a change in the launch date, but it is expected to be not a major hit. As far as I understand it, things may be moved a few days at most. There seem to be buffers all along the process, so I do not yet begin to panic ;)

… but I have to admit that this triggers bad memories. As I said, I flew in into Orlando last year to see the STS-115 launch (which I finally didn’t make due to its long delay). With STS-115, all the trouble also started with launch delays, that time caused by a lightning strike. That, too, was quite some time before launch, at least if I correctly remember. It was not that early as the current problem, which leaves me with the firm hope that there is enough buffer time available even to launch on the target date of October, 23rd. Let’s see…

Photo: In the Orbiter Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, workers secure the tool storage assembly unit into Discovery’s payload bay. Photo credit: NASA/Amanda Diller