The space gods just don’t want to let go of the Discovery space shuttle, it seems. The final voyage and work mission of the workhorse of the space fleet has been postponed once again. It was scheduled to lift off at 3:39 pm Eastern today, but bad weather has arrived and the flight has been postponed until tomorrow, Friday.
NASA photo
Discovery is the oldest of the three remaining orbiters (as NASA refers to them) and has taken 38 spaceflights in the 26 years it has been going out and coming back. This 39th and final flight will be taking some spare parts to the international space station along with a spare room module and some sort of a humanoid robot that will assist the astronauts in the space station by doing something robotic, I guess.
This closing act for Discovery has been beset with niggling little things that kept postponing the launch, namely some leaking helium and nitrogen seals in the engine area, and then an electrical anamoly popped up. Those are all fixed now and it’s just a matter of waiting for the clouds to clear out, hopefully by Friday afternoon when the “window” will be open for a 3:04 pm launch. But the weather guys are only giving it a 60% chance of favorable conditions. This current space window closes Sunday and if the launch is delayed beyond that, the final window for this year will be from December 1 throught December 5.
The remaining two orbiters, Atlantis and Endeavour will continue the missions until later next year when they will also be retired. From there the space travel program will shift to building newer spacecraft that will be capable of traveling farther than these older vehicles can.
We’d better come back to earth now and get our own equipment checked out. I’m going to get the coffee started.
Also on FireGeezer…
- Morning Lineup – February 24 – February 24, 2011
- Morning Lineup – November 26 – November 26, 2010
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