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Shuttle Atlantis Being Readied For August Launch
DarkNemesis618 writes "The Space Shuttle Atlantis was moved into the Vehicle Assembly Building today to begin the mating process to it's external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. Atlantis is scheduled to launch either August 27th or 28th, being only the 3rd launch since the Columbia tragedy in 2003. Atlantis is set to resume construction of the International Space Station by bringing up the second set of massive solar arrays needed for the laboratory modules that are to be added later on in the station's construction. Once the flight review is completed (Aug. 16), an exact date will be set for launch. Pending any problems, rollout to the launchpad is scheduled for July 31st."
Engage the cloak, or the Wraith hive ships will come!
Take off every sig. For great justice.
As are all launches of such a grand vehicle.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You failed to fail it. That makes you a double failure.
Well, they will finally get those new solar panels installed. Now the crew wont have to draw straws to decide who gets to pick the game system for the "night".
Any hints on why they don't seem to use Endeavour anymore?
I thought, Endeavour is their newest and hence most modern craft.
This should be an interesting mission mostly due to the complicated spacewalk required to install the P3/P4 truss segment and its associated solar arrays. Currently the P5 truss and its solar arrays are mounted on the Z1 truss. The P3/P4 truss segment and its solar arrays need to go in between. I'm not exactly sure how they plan to do this but I would assume they are going to temporarily move the P5 truss and solar arrays to some temporary mounting point (perhaps they will retract the solar arrays if that is possible). Then they will install the P3/P4 truss and reinstall the P5 truss outboard (and extend the solar arrays).
Since the station has always had power from the P5 truss while it has been inhabited it will have to depend on temporary power from another source (such as the solar arrays on the Zvezda service module or the Zarya control module). This may add additional time constraints in this spacewalk. For fans of spacewalks this will be a blast! It will definitely be one of the most complicated spacewalks ever performed.
If you aren't a fan of spacewalks and complicated juggling tricks in space, this might be a boring mission for you.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
As happy as I am to see the shuttle flying, I wonder if NASA can not use spaceX's falcon 9 to speed things up; It holds 2x the cargo of the shuttle at a 1/10 of the cost. It would be nice to put up a double load.
Somewhere down the road, America needs to develop an automated system similar to progress.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do what? The "fixes" were actually on site tests of repair kits to make sure they'd work in space.
When anything Nasa did involved non stop TV all day, analysis in the studio, days off school to watch grainy B&W images of astronauts and a feeling of breathless excitement at the sheer awesomeness of the event.
These days it's a comment at the end of the news that something launched and everyone shrugs and mumbles 'so what'. A pity. We've totally lost sight of just what mankind has achieved in space.
Obviously it will eventually become normal stuff, it has to otherwise we'd all wet ourselves everytime a car drove by but right now it is still dangerous, the people that work on it are wonderful brave individuals and we should keep our side of the deal by yelling "yeah!" when it all goes to plan.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Getting 2 crafts together is always tricky. In fact, EU's ATV will go through several trips to attempt this and make sure. With this automation, it allows EU to participate in space without having to worry about directly putting ppl into space.
The interesting, and far more difficult, automation is what DARPA did recently. That was trying to hoover around a craft without running into it. That will allow for a number of interesting capablities. The most useful (in terms of civil use) is true robotic assmebling of crafts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When I was a young kid (in the shadow of the Apollo mission days), I'd hoped that manned space flights would have become so routine by the 21st century that they wouldn't even make the news. They would garner as much attention as a plane taking off at the local airport. ...plus, I'd be living on the moon by now with my female android wife. Strike 3.