The crew of the next space shuttle mission took a look at the vehicle that will take them into space on Wednesday.
The seven astronauts are at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, for a practice countdown and training for an emergency evacuation from the launch pad. Their real launch is scheduled for 7 December.
鈥淚t does make the mission much more real,鈥� British-born astronaut Nicholas Patrick said at the foot of the launch pad on Wednesday. 鈥淚t鈥檚 much more immediate when you come here and see the vehicle stacked.鈥�
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Patrick will be making his first trip to space on the space shuttle Discovery in December. He is one of five rookies on this mission.
During three spacewalks, the crew will help rewire the International Space Station鈥檚 electrical system to prepare for a major expansion in the coming years.
The launch window was originally scheduled to open on 14 December, but shuttle managers moved the launch one week earlier to give workers time off during the holidays and to avoid having the shuttle in the air during the New Year (see Y2K-like fears create shuttle scheduling crunch).
鈥淲e took a hard look at what it would take to accommodate moving launch up by one week,鈥� says Discovery commander Mark Polansky. 鈥淭here were a few events we thought we could compress or eliminate [in our training].鈥�
Ready to go
鈥淭here does come a point at which you feel you鈥檙e ready to go, and I think we鈥檙e at that point,鈥� Polansky added.
This will be the first night launch since the Columbia accident. NASA required the first two post-Columbia shuttles to launch in daylight so cameras could see any foam or ice coming off the external fuel tank. If NASA continued to launch the shuttles only in daylight, there would not be enough available launch windows to complete construction of the ISS by the shuttles鈥� 2010 retirement.
NASA says the fact that it will be more difficult to spot all of the falling foam and ice at night is more of an issue for gathering data to improve tank safety for future flights.
During this and other shuttle flights, radar will still be used to observe lift-off and the bright lights from the solid rocket boosters should illuminate the tank and orbiter during the first two minutes of the flight, a critical period for foam and ice shedding.
鈥淒ebris is always a challenge,鈥� Polansky says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to continue to be a challenge as long as we have foam on that tank.鈥�
Polansky adds the astronauts will check for damage to the shuttle鈥檚 sensitive heat shield once they are in space and sensors embedded in the front edges of the wings will alert ground controllers to any unexpected impacts.
