Category: columbus

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No Space Shuttle Launch in December 2007…

NASA has waived off any further space shuttle launch attempts for the December launch window. NASA’s shuttle home page has a quick note about that:

The launch of space shuttle Atlantis has been rescheduled for no earlier than Jan. 2, 2008. The postponement will give engineers time to evaluate false readings from the engine cutoff sensor system that measures liquid hydrogen in the external tank.

As far as I know, a January, 2nd launch will be around 5:45am ET.

It is actually no surprise to me, given the new sensor problems. There is not much more news available as of now, I will keep you posted as I get updates.

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Shuttle launch day? Unfortunately not: scrub!

Space Shuttle Atlantis LAUNCH HAS officially BEEN SCRUBBED. This post contains a full log of the order of events from tanking begin at 5:55am up until conclusion of the first post-scrub press briefing at around 8:30am.

Today should have seen the second launch attempt for space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-122 mission to the international space station ISS. Atlantis should have deliver the European Columbus lab module to the orbiting complex. Read why this now doesn’t happen…

Tanking has begun at 5:55a ET and so far everything is proceeding nominally. At around 6:40a a first status of the ECO sensors, responsible for a three-day launch scrub, is expected. All for sensors must work perfectly today, otherwise the launch will be scrubbed. If all goes well, Atlantis will lift-off at 3:21pm ET, within a very short one-minute launch window. Weather looks favorable, with just a 20% chance of weather prohibiting the launch.

Liquid hydrogen sensor number 3 has failed!

tanking has begun for space shuttle Atlantis second launch attempt on December, 9thAt 6:25a, guys in the control center look relaxed. Let’s hope it remains that way…


All four ECO sensors now indicate “wet”. This is good, but not yet a relief. The problem that caused launch scrub on Thursday did only show up after a series of test commands were sent to the sensors. As of my information, we are still about half an hour to an hour away from these checks.

6:47a: tanking has changed to “fast fill” mode. Last time, the ECO sensor problem occured 16 minutes into fast fill. According to the NASA TV commentator, we should get results of the sensor test in about half an hour.

6:52am: Liquid hydrogen sensor 3 has failed! A minute before that, the NASA TV commentator announced that all four sensors had passed the check, but then, he sadly had to announce that ECO sensor number three failed after a few seconds. Based on the information provided in yesterday’s press briefing, a launch scrub is highly probable.

7:00am: NASA will tank for another half hour. The team is now doing troubleshooting. No launch scrub yet!

7:02am: NASA TV commentator: “the ground rules layed out that we have to have four sensors to proceed with launch. And we have had sensor number 3 fail. So, we are going to do some trouble shooting over the next half hour. At that point we would stop, asses whether we do any further testing at that point and then drain liquid oxygen. Liquid hydrogen will stay in filled configuration.” … “An official launch scrub has not yet been declared, but according to the plan, the rest of the morning is evolving into a tanking test.“

7:09am: NASA TV: “The MMT has asked the propulsion console to come up with a time line on how long it would take to drain the liquid oxygen and then drain liquid hydrogen to 5%”. “The mission management team will … shortly … talk about what our official status will be. Although we have not officially declared the scrub, the commit launch criteria does not permit to continue…“

7:13am: NASA TV: “We continue to fill the tank for another 15 minutes”. Me: Note that this is not in support for a launch attempt but for troubleshooting purposes. As outlined yesterday, NASA will use the tanking to gather additional data, which hopefully provides more insight into the root cause of that problem. Let’s hope that NASA manages to get that highly in demand data.

7:24am: NASA TV officially announces the launch scrub.

7:39am: The NASA homepage officially states that space shuttle Atlantis’ Sunday launch has been scrubbed.

7:55am: Commentator announces that a short news briefing will be held within the next ten minutes or so. Meanwhile, the launch attempt has been converted into a tanking test. NASA is hopeful to retrieve some data pointing to the root cause of the ECO sensor problems. It was also noted that the failure scenario this time was different from what has been seen at the last launch attempt on Thursday.

8:00am: mission management team meeting set for 9:00am. Liquid oxygen tank is being drained.

I just picked up this picture from NASA TV. It shows members of the mission management team discussing after space shuttle Atlantis second launch attempt had been scrubbed.

Members of the mission management team are discussing in launch control center after space shuttle Atlantis second launch attempt had been scrubbed.
8:14am: Press briefing begins. NASA launch director Doug Lyons is interviewed by public relations officer George Diller.

Mr. Lyons explained: “All the voltages had good readings as well. We were very excited. We thought we had a good system and ready to fly today. We continued monitoring and then we saw sensor number 3 go dry to wet, which was a failure.” He added that based on the launch commit criteria set yesterday, that meant the launch had to be scrubbed.

As already said, today is now devoted to troubleshooting. Mr. Lyons: “We do have a troubleshooting plan in place. We stopped the flow on the liquid hydrogen (LH2) system and put it into a stable posture configuration. And we drain the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank, than we focus on LH2, we drain down to 5% and stop there and then monitor the system for four hours and see how these systems behave. Then we drain and secure the pad.” I assume that this is done in order to see how thermal changes may affect sensors and their connections to the orbiter.

Mr. Lyons noted that the failure was not much different from Thursday’s failure: “The only difference is sensor 3 and 4 failed Thursday, and today just sensor number 3. It failed in the same time frame and the same manner.” It should be said, however, that every time before there was trouble with the ECO sensors, that trouble “magically disappeared” (to quote Wanye Hale) on second tanking. That was the rational for attempting a launch today. So something is different to previous experience.

Asked on how to proceed now, Mr. Lyons declined to comment: “We have a 9am mission management team meeting and discuss our options. It would be speculation at this time to try to make a guess on which direction we head. We have multiple options. We will put something together and then implement it after that meeting.“

After the interview, NASA TV ended its coverage of today’s launch attempt at 8:21 am. ET.

Press conference is whenever the mission management team meeting concludes. My personal guess is this will be in the late afternoon/evening time frame.

I, too, will now conclude coverage of the launch attempt on this blog page. I’ll now stick to other things and wait for the press conference. Should exciting news happen, I hope to pick it up. If so, I’ll create a new posting on my blog. Thanks everyone for reading.

And a shameless self-promo plug: if you liked this article, share it and send a link to it to your friends ;)

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STS-122 Launch Scrub Press Conference…

Actually, it was a quick status briefing and not a press conference. There is not yet much information, so they had not to tell a lot. The scrub of Atlantis STS-122 launch attempt on December, 6th has been confirmed once again. Neither Atlantis nor Columbus, its primary payload, will launch into space today. The next launch attempt will be no earlier than tomorrow, but may be farther delayed.

The problem is related to two ECO sensors which had invalid readings. This type of problem is typically discovered late in the countdown, while tanking (that same type of problem prevented me from seeing the STS-115 launch in 2006…). There are four of these sensors.

Space Shuttle ECO Sensor during Testing.
ECO Sensors in a Test Setting
Troubleshooting is currently underway. They will send out an inspection team to do a quick evaluation of the external tank status. This will take around an hour and a half. There is a technical meeting at noon, where options will be discussed. At 2pm, there is a mission management team meeting, which will decide on how to continue forward. A press conference on the outcome of that meeting is expected no earlier than 4pm.

The firing room guys will work on a routine that provides a 24-hour turnaround. From their point of view, a December, 7th launch is a possibility. However, it is yet uncertain if it is also a possibility when looking at the big picture. So if the missing management team gives a “go” for Saturday, this can be done. If that would be the case, the launch attempt will be at 4:09pm tomorrow (each attempt is roughly 30 minutes earlier than the previous one).

Space Shuttle Atlantis sitting at the Pad after the December, 6th launch scrub.
Atlantis sitting at the Pad after the December, 6th launch scrub

STS-122 unfortunately has a very narrow launch window. It extends just 7 days and possibly one more day if the mission duration is shortened by one day. Even more unfortunate, NASA was hoping for a two-day mission extension to help troubleshoot solar array problems on the international space station.

I will post any updates when I receive them. But I guess I won’t have much more solid information before the end of the 4pm press conference. BTW: all times are EST.

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Atlantis launch may be delayed just one day

On the press conference, the firing room just said that from their point of view a 24 hour launch delay is possible. But that doesn’t mean that this will be the actual decision from an overall point of view.

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STS-122 officially scrubbed at 9:56a ET

NASA home page states:

Dec. 6, 10 a.m. EST: Official scrub came at 9:56 a.m. EST. An update is forthcoming on NASA TV.

I’ll be watching the NASA press conference as soon as it starts (it was scheduled for 4:30p, now it is 4:36, but it hasn’t started yet).

While it is now clear that Atlantis will not reach space today (nor will the Columbus lab module), it is unclear when the next launch attempt will be. Some say December, 7th, other speculate whether or not this will need repairs that can’t be done in the STS-122 launch window.

Press conference just begun…

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Atlantis launch scrub somewhat confirmed

The scrub of today’s Atlantis launch attempt becomes more and more real… NASA’s homepage right now has this statement:

Approximately 16 minutes into fast fill, two ECO sensors failed to indicate wet. They are troubleshooting the issue. Currently, H2 is at 80% and O2 is at 50%. Tanking is continuing. We expect to have a status from leadership soon as to whether we continue or scrub. If we scrub, a briefing will follow that decision on NASA TV.

It doesn’t sound final, but it backs evidence that the information on nasaspaceflight.com regarding the STS-122 launch scrub is correct. Other sites now also report accordingly.

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Atlantis STS-122 launch attempt scrubbed

I am now following up on the launch scrub. Remeber, it is still unconfirmed, but the information looks pretty solid.

As it looks, the problem is indeed related to the ECO sensors that I just wrote about. Two of four seem to have failed, which can not easily be overruled.

The news is still not confirmed. If it is true, the shuttle is probably being detanked right now and the sensors are undergoing additional tests. Only after such tests it can be seen what needs to be done and how long the mission will be delayed. The delay is very unfortunate, because there is only a small launch window of 7 days to launch STS-122. If that fails, the next launch attempt can be in January 2008 at earliest. This would probably affect the whole shuttle schedule – and even Ares and Constellation – as they depend on STS-125 in summer, after which launch pad 39B will be handed over to constellation.

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Columbus – Europe’s lab at the International Space Station ISS

Columbus at the ISS - Artist's viewColumbus is Europe’s space lab at the international space station. It is ESA‘s most important European mission to the ISS to date and the cornerstone of Europe’s contribution to this international endeavour. Once Columbus is launched, assembled to the Space Station and verified, ESA will become an active partner in the operations and utilization of mankind’s only permanent outpost in space.

It will be launched on December, 6th onboard space shuttle Atlantis (STS-122 mission). Columbus will be transported into Earth orbit in the Shuttle’s cargo bay, pre equipped with five internal rack. Two of its external experiment facilities will be stowed separately in the Shuttle’s cargo bay and attached to the outside of the laboratory module structure in orbit. German ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel will play a key role in two of the three spacewalks or EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) scheduled for the mission. During the mission’s first EVA, Schlegel will help to install and power up the laboratory.

As the first European laboratory devoted to long-term research in space, Columbus will further expand the science capabilities of the ISS. In its interior, the Columbus laboratory will provide accommodation for experiments in the field of multidisciplinary research into biology, physiology, material science, fluid physics, technology, life science and education. In addition, its external payload facility hosts experiments and applications in the field of space science, Earth observation and technology.

Columbus before launch in the ISS processing facility
Columbus waiting for its flight in the
ISS processing facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Columbus is manged from its control center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany (near Munic). The center is operated by DLR under a contract with ESA. The Columbus Control Center will work together with mission control in the US and Russia and provide operational oversight, data transfer facility and all other essential services to the Columbus module.

Columbus was built by Bremen, Germany based EADS Astrium, which coordinated 41 suppliers from 14 countries. Its development cost roughly 880 Million Euros. The Columbus module is scheduled to last at least 10 years in space. It was originally scheduled to be delivered to the ISS in 2004, but delayed after the space shuttle Columbia accident.