Shuttle Launch Delayed

fizzix writes "Weather has delayed the launch of Discovery to tomorrow (Sunday the 2nd), but not everyone thinks it is ready to go. CNN reports both the chief engineer and the chief safety officer gave it a 'no go' for launch. Despite their reservations, barring inclement weather the shuttle is planned to liftoff at 3:26 ET." Update: 07/02 05:00 GMT by Z : I said launch not lauch. Fixed headline.

Comments

SpaceFlightNow (as usual) has great coverage

[xmas2003]

STS-121 Mission Status Center - 'nuff said.

I was there ...

[oostevo]

I was there this afternoon.

I'm almost surprised they even decided to proceed to the point that they did today (the hold with T-9 minutes to go). Standing on the ground at Kennedy, if you looked West, the sky was almost black with storm clouds over the runway at the Shuttle landing faciliity. You know, the one that needs to be clear for the Shuttle to land if there's an emergency? Seems like a bit of a waste.

Just my two cents.

I don't get it.

[Carnage Pants]

Two people who are obviously very high up on the pecking order around there say, "No-go," and and yet it's still decided the shuttle is going to launch. Is it just me, or are we asking for another disaster?

From the article ...

[Sonic McTails]

"Earlier Saturday mission managers decided a problem with a thermostat in one of Discovery's thrusters, which was showing a reading in the 80s when it should have been in the 60s, was not dangerous and it could be fixed once the shuttle was in orbit."

Given the fact that foam striking the side of the Columbia during takeoff wasn't considered dangerous, I'm suprised they didn't stop to recheck everything before hand. When it comes down to rechecking everything and delaying the mission for a little longer vs. the millions lost and the following PR hit, the answer pretty obvious. You could say "it could never happen", but try and tell that to the crews of the Changeller and the Columbia.

Chief Safety Officer

[Anonymous Coward]

If the chief safety officer can't cancel a launch due to safety concerns, what's the point of having a chief safety officer?

Re:Chief Safety Officer

[evanbd]

Well, the CSO didn't choose to appeal the decision. Basically the CSO and chief engineer are worried about the loss of the vehicle, but not the crew. Everyone agrees the crew will be safe, since they plan to check out the tiles etc in orbit, and keep the crew in the ISS and land the shuttle remotely if it looks bad.

Griffin is taking a calculated risk -- he knows the shuttle might be lost, but has taken steps to make sure the crew isn't.

So basically, they object and think it's the wrong decision, but they believe that having gone on record as saying that is sufficient -- they don't think there's a need to override the person in charge of risk assessment since what's at risk is only the spacecraft and not the crew. Whether to risk the craft is legitimately a monetary / political decision, not a safety one, since the crew should be fine either way.

Slight confusion over the submital

[beebware]

The details in the Slashdot posting are slightly incorrect. Todays/yesterdays launch (the scheduled on on the 1st of July) was postponed at T-9minutes after a 40 minute scheduled hold (if it's scheduled, why didn't they add it into the count down?) and approximately 3 minutes of 5 into an "extended hold" (after they "polled" all the various sections of the launch team). Then the decision was made the "scrub" (abort) the launch due the weather being too unpredictable and there being storm clouds (anvil clouds) within 20 miles of the emergency landing strip (although they have got backup landing strips in France and Spain). They will retry the launch tomorrow, and can abort for any reason up to 31 seconds before main ignition.

At the moment, they are still "go" for the launch tomorrow.

BTW: You learn a lot from watching the live stream on nasa.gov!

Re:Slight confusion over the submital

[endernet]

The 45 min hold at T-9:00 is standard. It's used for making up time if they take too long on some pre-flight procedures. I think there is a 10min scheduled hold in there at about T-20:00 as well. Why is it not included in the countdown? Because they can chose to use all the 45 min, or only some of it.

Re:Slight confusion over the submital

[Anonymous Coward]

storm clouds (anvil clouds) within 20 miles of the emergency landing strip (although they have got backup landing strips in France and Spain)

Just a small correction there; the strips in France and Spain aren't backup strips, the two locations serve different purposes. If there is a failure early in the launch sequence then they can in theory just ditch the attachments, turn around, and land at the emergency strip near the launch site. ("In theory" because this maneuver is so insanely difficult that it's been said to require about seven different miracles to be successful.) Past a certain point the shuttle can no longer make it back to Florida, so then the abort procedure changes to continue approximately on course and land on the far side of the Atlantic. This part is where the sites in France and Spain come into play. There are few, if any, scenarios where either side could be used, so you end up with a weird situation where bad weather in a place four thousand miles away can scrub the launch because you need to be able to abort there if something goes badly wrong.

Today was the opposite. The transatlantic sites were clear but the strip in Florida itself was too cloudy, so they couldn't go.

This is yet another advantage of simpler capsule systems. The abort modes for those are all extremely simple and reliable compared to the Shuttle's. You fire the escape tower, get away from the rockets, ride down and open the parachutes when you get to the right altitude. As long as the weather isn't so horrible that it sinks the capsule in the ocean, everything should be pretty much fine.

Apollo 12 got hit by lightning during launch and still landed on the Moon, but the Shuttle can't launch if there are storm clouds within 20 miles. The wonders of modern technology.