Go For Launch, agian


Wired News: NASA Aims for Tuesday Launch

NASA will try to launch Discovery on the first shuttle mission in more than two years next Tuesday, after tracing last week’s fuel gauge failure to, most likely, an electrical grounding problem lurking inside the spacecraft.

Shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said Tuesday, we have go for launch!the only way to thoroughly check the system is to fuel Discovery and have all its equipment running.

“We believe the best way to go through this is to do a countdown,” he said. “If the sensors (gauges) work exactly like we think they will, then we’ll launch on that day. If anything goes not per the plan that we’ve laid out in front of us, then we’ll have a scrub and we’ll have to talk about it.”

In what would be an almost certainly controversial move in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, NASA may also proceed with the liftoff if the fuel gauge problem recurs but is considered well understood. That would mean revoking a launch rule requiring all four hydrogen fuel gauges at the bottom of Discovery’s external tank to be working properly, and instead relying on just three out of four.

As a big space-fan, this is exciting, I hope this launch turns out better then the last one, we just need to get up there and back home safe again to keep the space dreams alive. So much talk about the anniversary of the moon landing and all, its kind of sad to think we’ll probably never go back.


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