Thunderstorms cross Kennedy Space Center on Saturday. Photo Credit/NASA TV
Preparations for a second attempt to launch shuttle Endeavour were on track Saturday, following a formal review of countdown activities and other preparations by NASA’s Mission Management Team.
The launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is set for Monday at 8:56 a.m., EDT. “Everything is in real great shape,” said Mike Moses, the Mission Management Team chairman. “Really, there are no issues at all working.”
The forecast includes a 70 percent chance of favorable conditions. There is some concern for high winds at the shuttle’s emergency runway at Kennedy and low cloud cover. Central Florida was experiencing thunderstorms on Saturday, conditions that were expected to improve on Sunday.
However, the weather could effect planning to move a launch pad fixture called the Rotating Service Structure away from Endeavour at mid-day. The operation could be delayed for several hours, if necessary, without affecting the launch plans.
Efforts to launch Endeavour’s 16-day mission to the International Space Station were scrubbed on April 29 by a hydraulic system heater failure. The cause was traced to an electrical short.
Technicians replaced an avionics box, external wiring and thermostats prior to conducting a series of circuit tests before the second launch attempt.
Endeavour’s countdown got under way on Friday. Mission Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Greg H. Johnson and mission specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency arrived at Kennedy the previous say for the last of their training.
The astronauts will deliver and equip the station with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $2 billion particle detector designed to search for and characterize primordial antimatter, dark matter and Stranglets, a type of quark. The studies should reveal more about the cosmic fabric and explain how the universe evolved.
Endeavour’s cargo also includes the Express Logistics Carrier-3, an external platform with spare parts for the station. The spares include ammonia coolant tanks for the station’s thermal control system, communications antennae and parts for the Canadian robot, Dextre. Feustel, Chamitoff and Fincke have trained for four spacewalks.
A U. S., Russian and European crew of six will greet Endeavour’s astronauts when they arrive on May 16. The mission is the 25th and final flight for Endeavour, which debuted in 1992. After Endeavour’s mission, NASA plans one more shuttle mission. Atlantis is moving from a late June to a mid-July launch with a crew of four astronauts and supplies for the space station.