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NASA Scrubs Launch Due to Faulty Fuel-Tank Sensor
VUSE g-EE-k writes "NASA has scrubbed Wednesday's launch of Discovery due to a faulty fuel-tank sensor in the external fuel tank. They are going to begin the troubleshooting process. They have not released details as to how long this delay will last. The crew have begun to get off the shuttle. For more information, see the NASA TV site. Drudge Report has some initial coverage of the scrub."
Reader adefa adds a link to NASA's Space Shuttle launch page with more info.
Conspiracy in 5, 4, 3, 2...
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I'm still confident they'll launch before DNF or Longhorn are released.
One of four sensors used to detect a low level of hydrogen propellent. They need 2 to work of the four. After they detank, it can be diagnosed, possibly launching tomarrow.
In case others get Slashdotted, Here's CNN.com's article.
-jls
Techno-pagan
Just got back to my desk looking to count down the final hour and find it's been scrubbed. I feel sorry for all the astronauts who had to go through all the buckling up and such, it was fun to watch such an involved process. Oh well, better safe than sorry.
Anybody know how big their launch window is? I was under the impression they had a very small amount of time to be able to meet the ISS.
Hopefully they will get the issue fixed soon.
They have until July 31st in the current launch window if I recall correctly.
I have a faulty fuel sensor in my car. My solution: just fill up every few days to make sure I don't run out of gas. Why can't these "genius" rocket scientist just have the crew stop off and get gas half way up, and again when they come back down?
Dammit, *I* should be in charge of NASA.
(please note, that this post is as insightful as most of the other Slashdot 'advice' to NASA. please mod accordingly)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Why link to Drudge??? WHY!?!?
Just so you all know - here's the "initial coverage" he has which was just a link to an AP blurb on Yahoo:
"KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - Today's launch of the space shuttle "Discovery" has been scrubbed. The launch was called off because of a faulty fuel-tank sensor. Discovery was supposed to take off for the first shuttle flight since the "Columbia" disaster of two and a-half years ago."
NASA engineers are waiting for the astronauts to disembark so they can troubleshoot the sensor while the tank is still full. The way they were discussing it on NASA TV, the tank will be defueled at some point, so they wanted to run some tests before that.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Just bang it a couple times!
.. with the release of Duke Nukem Forever.
Duke Nukem Forever programmers are staffing NASA Launch Control.
They are going to begin the troubleshooting process
Trouleshooting prcocess??? Alright. In words of George Carlin:
Whole thing starts when you get to the gate. First announcement, "We would like to begin the boarding process." Extra word, "process", not necessary. Boarding is enough, "We'd like to begin the boarding." Simple! Tells the story...
People add extra words when they want things to sound more important than they really are. "Boarding Process" sounds important.... It isn't! It's just a bunch of people getting on an airplane. People like to sound important. Weather men on television talk about shower activity, sounds more important than showers. I even heard one guy on CNN talk about a rain event. Swear to god. He said, "Louisiana is expecting a rain event." I thought HOLY SHIT I hope I can get tickets to that!
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I've never heard every engineer at JSC say "Doh!" at the same time before.
"There is no word how long the delay will last and when Discovery's launch could be rescheduled. NASA has through July 31 to launch Discovery or else wait until September 9 due to the need to lift off and separate the external tank in daylight."
even if they hadnt for the sensor, they where likely going to scrub it for weather. They only had a 40% chance of launching today.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
As much as I am disappointed in the delayed launch, I am willing to give NASA the benefit of the doubt about the seriousness of this malfunction (some would like to question the necessity of scrubbing the launch over a redundant sensor failing). I've since grown too tall (6'4) to think of any time in space, but when columbia disentigrated, I was not. The accident made me reconsider my dreams, and an accident with Discovery would make the nation do the same thing, which would be a very bad thing.
At this point I think they're just playing it safe. Even after the whole CAIB regulations and requirements, they're taking a chance with the shuttle launch. I don't think any of the guys in that control room wanted to be responsible for another horrible accident because they declined to call off the launch. It seems like they probably didn't have to call it off, since there was a backup for the backup, but I think I would have done the same. Hopefully it's something they can have fixed in a day or two.
In a shock announcement today, Roland Piquepaquille announced that he has purchased the majority (51%) of the well known news syndication site, Drudge Report.
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Be yourself no matter what they say
I understand that this is a big deal, since the last time a shuttle flew it did not get to land, and no disrepoect meant for the friends and family of those imvolved...
But seriously, this kind of thing would barely be news if not for the previous flight. They end up reschduling a good deal of all shuttle flights due to weather or other circumstances. If they were this careful with every airplane flight that took off and landed in the world each day, we would never get where we need to be. It makes you wonder how many times they launched in the past with problems like these and were "lucky" nothing happened.
Honestly, this trip into space is more of a political statement (or publicity shoot if you prefer) than anything. They are just dropping off some supplies and doing a little work on testing repair methods from what I understand. This shoudn't be as big of a deal as it is, just let them fly the mission when the time is right and things look correct on the ground, then tell us about the success. That's good enough coverage.
The problem was that a low-level cut-off fuel sensor seemed to be indicating the hydrogen level of the external fuel tank was low. There are four of these sensors but NASA prefers a high level of "redundancy" for the launch. Small things like this scrub liftoffs quite often. Spirits are low at NASA. Thanks to NASA's live TV coverage, this problem was made public before even the NASA website could report on it. I was going to liveblog the Discovery launch at GlobeLens.com until this happened. Rats.
Because:
A) They don't have the budget they used to, which is a dang shame.
and
B) You can only glue something back together so many times before it totally breaks down. This is the state the shuttles are finding themselves entering now.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Here.
I'm old enough to remember the Apollo days, and even back then they were regularly delaying launches at the last minute.
The problem isn't that they don't do things like they used to. The problem is that they're still doing things they way they used to. They've never put any priority into actually simplifying their launch systems. They just keep dragging along with this bloated overpriced Rube Goldberg contraption.
...maybe it's time to put NASA down. The old dog just can't hunt no more. I still believe that space exploration should be the number one priority of the human race, but it's starting to look like NASA may be hindering that more than helping. The money would probably be better spent sponsoring things like the X-Prize.
Are we becoming so risk averse that we will significantly slow or stop the tide of exploration?
How the heck did NASA put men on the moon in a decade? They did not have a bunch of high tech crap that they have now, it was the ability to take risks.
Perhaps Nasa should take a lesson from Henry Ford. Forget multi-billion dollar boondoggles (with quadruple backups out the wazzoo) like the shuttle. build a freaking factory to mass produce a SIMPLE, STANDARDIZED rocket.
Either that or let free enterprise take over...
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Yeah.
Because if the engine's are still running but there's no fuel left, the engines will tear themselves apart violently, potentially destorying the shuttle.
And it was a window cover, which was going to be removed anyways. So once they had removed the cover and repaired the tiles it dented, it's all good as new.
Gentoo Sucks
> What ever happened to the days when everything NASA was super high quality?
Two things... My roomate's old beater car is three years newer than the Space Shuttle. There's no way in hell you'd catch me trying to drive that thing at mach whatever (if it would even do it.)
Second, (and somewhat more seriously) this was one of four fuel sensors that have to work at -400 degrees (I don't recall if NASA TV said C or F... I would guess C) in liquid hydrogen. That's not a trivial task. Of course, that's why they design redundant systems. They really only need two of the four sensors to work... and they only need them in the case where another failure causes a low fuel situation (which should never happen.) This sensor was part of a backup system to a backup system. So, really, they probably could have gone ahead in full safety. It's just that on this launch, no one wants to screw up.
I'm sure the quality is fine... they're just being super cautious this time.
A new design is in the works, by both Lockheed Martin and a Northrop Grumman/Boeing team. Just today NASA approved a $28million contract to both teams to prepare for their design review in July 2006. It takes time to design a vehicle that will be used for years to come (and go to both the moon and to mars). Just gotta sit tight and be patient.
In short: Space guys were hanging around drinking a slurpee (I swear one had a 7-11 cup!), got into the giant silver toaster-mobile, drove down the huge road to the vehicle building, and that's it. Waiting for press conference at 4PM (Eastern time, I am assuming).
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True, back in the 60's in the Apollo days, they tested the bejezus out of everything; that's because they were pushing stuff to almost beyond what technology of the time would do, and they had to have the best of the best to have a chance in hell of pulling off the mission.
They just don't have the budget for that now. I think they just ignored a lot of stuff and got lucky most of the time. They are going to be super-careful this time; they can NOT afford a failure on this launch.
Remember when the air force told NASA to expect something like 1 in 20 missions to blow up, because that was their record with SRBs? NASA has been doing WAY better than that.
These days they're scrubbing when they notice something outside of nominal. I'm happy they are. The Challenger was lost when they were operating outside of nominal and figured they could get away with it. After that event, investigations showed that they were ignoring a WHOLE LOT of stuff. I keep hoping they'll stop ignoring their own rules; we'll see.
I think it's best not to reference "news sources" that announce "SEN. MCCAIN STARS IN BOOB RAUNCH FEST" in 20-point text concerning his participation in Wedding Crashers, with a tiny link at the top to NASA information.
Wow! -400 degrees Celsius... That's pretty damn cold! ;)
Face it, if you're not screwing the gas cap on correctly, there is a high probability that your careless disregard for the gas cap has caused a band of squirrels to take refuge in your fuel line.
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they launch when one of the four fuel sensors is working.
> ...this was one of four fuel sensors that have to work at -400 degrees (I don't recall if NASA TV
:-)
> said C or F... I would guess C)
I would lean more toward F (Unless you live in a
different universe than I do
I would hope F, as there is no such thing as -400 C.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Yeah. Anything colder than absolute zero is a bit too chilly for my liking.
/. ++
It was a window cover, which is placed to protect the windows while the shuttle is sitting on the pad. The cover is removed before liftoff...nature just decided to remove it a little early.
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
So apparently this photo was taken after they cancelled the launch. They seem pretty happy about it lol.. "Phewwwf..we dodged that one"
[alk]
I'll give you three reasons
1. Life expands to fill available niches-territory. (also harder to become extinct as a speices if we colonize space)
2. Untapped resources.
helium-3 mining on the moon for fusion, rare earth minerals from asteroids, etc.
3. New frontier.
With the ability to colonize the moon/mars, we have a new frontier which would allow the more independent and/or persecuted somewhere to go.
I am not saying Nasa is the answer, just that there are viable reasons to send people...
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Don't feel bad....NASA gets the whole C/F thing mixed up too!
one of four fuel sensors that have to work at -400 degrees (I don't recall if NASA TV said C or F... I would guess C)
Absolute zero is -273.15 C, so he probably didn't say -400 C. -400 F sounds more likely.
I'll probably be modded down for this...