President Obama and First Lady Michele Obama greet Endeavour astronauts, left to right, Drew Feustel, Roberto Vittori, Mike Fincke, Greg H. Johnson, Greg Chamitoff and Mark Kelly at the Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit/NASA TV
NASA mission managers said Friday that shuttle Endeavour could be ready for a second launch attempt as soon as early next week. However, the timing will depend on the outcome of weekend troubleshooting intended to identify the cause of a hydraulic system heater failure.
The heater problem forced mission managers to scrub efforts Friday to send Endeavour and a crew of six astronauts on her final voyage, a 14-day flight to equip the International Space Station with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $2 billion external observatory that may unlock mysteries about the early universe.
NASA’s launch team will confer Sunday to determine whether a second launch attempt on Monday is possible. The launch time would be 2:33 p.m, EDT.
Friday’s launch bid was scrubbed shortly after 12 p.m., EDT, when the Launch Control Center could not pinpoint the source of a failure in the heater system that thermally controls the fuel feeding one of three Auxiliary Power Units. The APU’s provide the hydraulic pressure that moves the shuttle’s rocket nozzles, the control surfaces on the wings and tail as well as lower the landing gear.
Launch pad technicians were expected to gain access to the APU heaters and electronics inside Endeavour’s tail section late Saturday, said NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach.
If the trouble is in a small heater or thermostat, repairs can likely be made in time for a launch attempt Monday.
If the difficulty is traced instead to a nearby electronics box filled with switching devices, the repairs will take much longer and the date of the next launch attempt would be uncertain, he said.
Endeavour commander Mark Kelly and his crew, Greg H. Johnson, Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency were on their way to the launch pad, when they were notified of the scrub.
The scrub did not deter President Obama and his family from making a scheduled visit to Kennedy and even meeting with Endeavour’s astronauts and their families. Obama met privately with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Kelly’s wife, according to Kennedy Space Center director Robert Cabana.
Giffords traveled to Florida for the launch from Houston, where she has been recovering from a gunshot received during a Jan. 8 political rally in Tucson.
The astronauts and family members will remain in Florida through the weekend, according to NASA.
During their visit to Kennedy, the Obamas toured the Orbiter Processing Facility that houses the shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis is undergoing preparations for NASA’s final shuttle mission, which is tentatively scheduled to lift off on June 28 with supplies for the space station.
The president offered words of encouragement to Kennedy workers — many of them facing job losses as the long running shuttle program comes to a close by mid-summer.
“He was very positive, enjoyed all he saw,” said Cabana, who characterized Obama as a strong supporter of space exploration. “He just wanted us to keep doing what we are doing.”