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NASA Delays Shuttle Launch Until Monday

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lightning-is-a-good-excuse dept.

rfunches writes "The Associated Press and the New York Times are now reporting that Atlantis will not launch Sunday. The delay will 'give engineers more time to determine whether one of the most powerful lightning strikes ever at a Kennedy Space Center launch pad caused any problems. The lightning Friday didn't hit the shuttle — it struck a wire attached to a tower used to protect the spacecraft from such strikes at the launch pad — but it created a lightning field around the vehicle, NASA managers said. The launch, planned for Sunday, now won't happen until at least Monday.'"

6 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Lighting field? by lee1026 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary talked about something called a "lightning field". As far as I am aware, there is no such thing. Can someone who is more knowledgeble about this tell us something? Or is it just a impressive name for a electo-mag field?

    1. Re:Lighting field? by ddillman · · Score: 4, Informative
      From the space.com article:

      "It was certainly not a hit to the vehicle, I want to make that perfectly clear," said NASA launch director Michael Leinbach of the strike. "But you can get an induced voltage field around the lightning strike, and that's what we're looking at now."

      After reviewing data from the lighting strike, engineers detected a small spike in the voltage readings from one of the three electrical buses that supply power to certain systems aboard Atlantis, Cain said. The spike - in a unit known as Essential Bus 1 BC - spanned just 80 milliseconds, but was enough to begin checks to ensure none of the shuttle's systems were compromised during the lightning strike.

      --
      Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
  2. Re:Video? by Mr2cents · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is a small image of the lightning strike on the space.com article..

    http://space.com/missionlaunches/060826_sts115_scr ub.html

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  3. Stills and video of strike. by reality-bytes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Still image from Camera 145. Still image from Camera 147

    Video Real (buffering)

    Video Windows codec

    --
    Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
  4. Re: ....lawl by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

    Honestly, why not just delete garbage like this?

    Because there is no such thing as limited free posting; and no such thing as limited liability for taking responsibility for the content of posts.

    KFG

  5. We're talking rockets, not airplanes. by AJWM · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nope, you're wrong -- or you're thinking about conventional aircraft.

    A Saturn V launch leaves a very nice path to ground through the ionized gas (flame) and carbon smoke (rich-burning kerosene fuel) trail it's pouring out the back end. That's why the thing got hit in the first place. To quote from a web page on the strike: "As the rocket accelerated through the low-altitude rain clouds, it behaved much like a lightning rod. A bolt of electricity struck the vehicle and traveled to the ground along the column of ionized, electrically conductive gases in the rocket engine exhaust plume of the Saturn V."

    (Actually it was hit twice; the first at an altitude of 6500 ft at 36 seconds into the launch, and again at about 14,500 ft at about 52 seconds)

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    -- Alastair