NASA Clears Shuttle Atlantis for Sunday Launch 40
Davemania writes "This Sunday, NASA will resume the reconstruction of the International Space Station with the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. NASA predicts a 60% chance that the weather will hold but will be keeping their eye at Tropical Storm Ernesto. The six-astronaut crew is tasked with deploying two large solar arrays and integrating the port 3/port 4 truss segment. As usual, the live launch can be seen on NASA TV."
Atlantis? (Score:1, Troll)
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It now says the chances of tomorrow's planned shuttle launch being scrapped are going up because of storms expected to hit central Florida.
Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters says there's a 60 percent chance bad weather will force a scrub, up 20 percent from yesterday.
Winters says they're still hoping the sea breeze will push the storms far enough away for Atlantis to take off at 4:30 p-m, Eastern.
She says the weather looks better Monday and Tuesday, in case tomorrow is a no-go.
NASA officials are also
Eye "AT" a hurricane... (Score:2)
Maybe not NASA, but certainly NOAA really can literally keep their eye AT a TS/hurricane [noaa.gov] by flying around and thru it in one of their P-3 Orions.
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Good luck! (Score:2, Funny)
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Godspeed Atlantis! (Score:2)
Re:woohoo! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:woohoo! (Score:5, Informative)
> software written by a company that basically just
> writes the shuttle software.
Specifically, of the five CPUs in the primary Shuttle management system, four run identical copies of the management/control software. This version was originally written by IBM's then Federal Systems Division, which was later sold (to Loral I believe). The fifth CPU runs code written to the same specifictions by the shuttle's prime contractor (then Rockwell, now Boeing). The two groups were (and I believe are) only allowed to communicate through formal written specifications and are never allowed to speak directly or to see one another's code. Whenever the software is changed, both versions must independently pass the same functional tests and then the entire cluster of five CPUs must pass the functional tests as a unit.
I haven't seen any detailed write-ups since they upgraded the Shuttle cockpit using what was essentially the Boeing 767 avionics, but I assume similar procedures still apply.
sPh
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http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/news_rels/2000/art/glass
Re:woohoo! (Score:4, Funny)
The eight balls like they used for attitude control on Apollo and on the old shuttle are gone.
Is it safe to launch now?
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Well, you never know when you're going to get lunched into space.
Sometimes, these get togethers ...just..take...off.
And of course, the shuttle has plenty of LOX. What better way to have Sunday lunch than with salmon and cream cheese.
Yeaap. I'm done now.
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Try doing it without air, and hundreds of kilometers above ground, then you'll get your news appearance.
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Not to be a wet blanket... (Score:2)
Anyone ELSE read that as (Score:2)
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Actually... no it's been postponed (Score:3, Informative)
There are some ok photos of the direct hits to the tower.
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/
it's pushed to monday now (Score:1)
The launch will be tried again Monday. Sunday is the first day of the shuttle's launch window, which closes September 7.
Mission managers said no other significant issues besides weather could affect the launch, said NASA test director Jeff Spaulding."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/26/atlantis. lau [cnn.com]
AP/NYT reporting Sunday NO-GO (Score:2)
The Associated Press and the New York Times are now reporting that Atlantis will not launch Sunday [nytimes.com]. The delay will "give engineers more time to determine whether one of the most powerful lightning strikes ever at a Kennedy Space Center launch pad caused any problems. The lightning Friday didn't hit the shuttle -- it struck a wire attached to a tower used to protect the spacecraft from such strikes at the launch pad -- but it created a lightning field around the vehicle, NASA managers said. The launch, plann