Posted on 06/16/2009 10:02:26 PM PDT by Liberty Valance
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Racing against the clock, NASA began fueling shuttle Endeavour for a Wednesday launch to the international space station after thunderstorms caused a three-hour delay.
The fueling finally got under way late Tuesday, just when it should have been ending.
NASA acknowledged it would be tight to meet the 5:40 a.m. liftoff time. But launch controllers spent the long weather delay figuring out ways to save time during the remainder of the countdown, and mission managers felt they had a good shot at getting Endeavour flying.
"We're not going to shortcut anything," said Mike Leinbach, assistant launch director for this mission. "If we get to the situation where we can't make it tonight, we'll just call it ... But right now, we're thinking we can get there fine."
The seven astronauts planned to head to the launch pad an hour later than usual, but an extra person would be there to strap them in. Everyone was motivated to make the launch happen, Leinbach said.
The seven astronauts were thrilled to get the chance.
"We are GO for tanking!" commander Mark Polansky wrote in a Twitter update....
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
There is no amount of money or fame that would get me to go skyward in one of these antiquated pieces of crap. Good luck to all. God be with you.
Fueling has been halted while a leak in the same area as last week is being evaluated. The leakage is higher than expected, and engineers are evaluating the problem, but it does not look good right now.
Considering the delay for weather, they cannot delay much longer without affecting the LRO launch, so we could be scrubbing the launch of Endeavour very shortly....
I wonder how many missions Story Musgrave has been on. It seems like a lot.
Hydrogen gas leaking again from space shuttle tank
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090617/ap_on_sc/us_space_shuttle
They are cycling the vent valve and doing everything they can to try and reduce the rate of leakage on this, but so far they are still out of tolerance on the leakage.
They are around 15 minutes from coming out of the planned 3 hour hold, and they cannot delay for any significant time because of the impact on the LRO launch later today.
I look for a scrub here very soon. If this is not resolved by the time the clock is due to start running, there is no sense in continuing the count...
I feel just the opposite. I was on the Cape when the Challenger went up and exploded in front of my eyes. I said then that if they rolled another one out on the pad the next day and offered me a seat on it I would jump at the chance.
Hydrogen gas leaking again from space shuttle tank
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Hydrogen gas is leaking again from a vent line on space shuttle Endeavour’s external fuel tank.
Launch officials have yet to call off Wednesday morning’s launch attempt. But it appears unlikely the shuttle will be able to take off. That means the space station construction mission will be delayed until July.
NASA said the leak is occurring in the same place as one that cropped up Saturday during fueling and caused a four-day launch delay.
Mission managers ordered repairs to the hydrogen gas vent line hookup. The hookup and two seals were replaced. But that apparently was not enough. The same repair worked back in March, when a similar leak stalled a shuttle flight.
Fueling got under way three hours late Tuesday night because of thunderstorms. The leak did not appear until early Wednesday.
dang.
Bummer.
Darn it! I was there last week on Saturday when they scrubbed it the first time. I had a great spot near A1A also. I have never seen a launch but will try to see one.
Second time in less than a week I’ve dragged my rearend out of bed to go watch this up close. And to have the same thing happen as a reason to scrub. Argh.
Six total:
STS-6, STS-51-F, STS-33, STS-44, STS-61, STS-80
But he's not on this one. Musgrave retired in 1997....
I've seen about 20 Shuttle launches, some up close, others from Daytona or Orlando. You are in for a real treat! I want to see a night launch. I've seen several night satellite launches, but never a Shuttle.
Launch ‘scrubbed’ until July
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