Bad news for that November 30 shuttle launch date: Two cracks have been found on the aluminum body of Discovery’s external tank.
In addition to the hydrogen leak on Discovery, NASA is now dealing with a crack in the foam insulation on the shuttle’s external tank.
Discovery’s launch is now officially postponed until no sooner than November 30.
Discovery’s launch is scrubbed again, this time due to another hydrogen leak. Next possible launch date is Monday, which means it is possible the launch will be delayed until early December.
The last launch of the space shuttle Discovery has been scrubbed today, this time because of weather. They will try again on Friday.
An electrical problem on the space shuttle Discovery could delay tomorrow’s launch. Update: NASA has decided to definitely delay the launch until Thursday, at the earliest.
The last launch of the space shuttle Discovery has been moved to Wednesday afternoon in order to give engineers time to test their repairs.
Engineers have discovered two new leaks on Discovery as it sits on the launchpad. It appears the Monday launch has been delayed at least one day.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the likely budget cuts expected from the next Congress are almost certainly going to threaten the extra shuttle flight that Congress authorized several weeks ago.
The leak on the space shuttle Discovery appears fixed, and NASA managers have confirmed the launch date as Monday, November 1, 4:40 pm (Eastern). This will be Discovery’s last flight.
If Congress does end up appropriating money for that last extra shuttle mission, NASA managers are considering delaying it as long as possible, until the fall of 2011. Key quote:
[Shuttle Program Manager John] Shannon said if the shuttle is retired prematurely, the ISS will not be properly supplied.
In other words, Congress and the President should never have retired the shuttle in the first place, at least not until a replacement was ready to go.
Unsure of the cause of yesterday’s fuel line leak on the space shuttle Discovery, engineers plan to replace a set of seals this week. Whether this will delay the November 1 launch remains unknown at this time.
It appears that the fuel leak on the space shuttle Discovery has stopped.
Engineers are trouble-shooting a fuel leak on the space shuttle Discovery. At the moment NASA does not expect this to delay the planned November 1 launch.
The layoffs in the American government space program continue. The United Space Alliance, the space shuttle’s primary contractor, today laid off 333 workers in Houston.
With the end of the shuttle program looming, about 1100 shuttle workers will be laid off in Florida today.
The maker of the shuttle external tank declared today the end of production.
A photo gallery showing the space shuttle Discovery’s last rollout from the VAB to the launchpad on Monday.
The space war over NASA continues. The Orlando Sentinel has an article today selling the merits of the Team Direct concept that would use most of the shuttle hardware to replace it.
The last journey of the space shuttle Discovery begins.
Launchpad 39B, where 53 shuttle launches took place, is about to be torn down.
Bill Harwood gives a good write-up of the uncertain status of the extra shuttle flight, approved by the Senate but not by the House.
Not only have amateur skywatchers photographed the X-37B military space plane presently in orbit, they use a smart phone app for tracking satellites and available to all to tell them when to look.
Yikes! A funnel cloud hovered over the space shuttle’s launch pad today, setting off tornado sirens. Fortunately, it did not touch down.
More on that failure of the cooling system on ISS. It appears that NASA is gearing up to send two astronauts out for up to two spacewalks to try to fix the problem.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit today said the following (in recognizing Jeff Foust’s op-ed for Technology Review):
CONGRESS BLOWS IT: Commercial Spaceflight, We Have A Problem. Congress will always choose short-term pork over long-term development unless there’s strong Presidential leadership. But while the Obama space policy is good, the White House hasn’t provided the kind of legislative push it takes to make it work. Without strong leadership, a good policy will always lose out to pork.
Didn’t someone say this already? In fact, didn’t that someone say this more than once?
The United Space Alliance, which runs shuttle operations for NASA at Cape Canaveral, has announced layoffs roughly 900 effective October 1. Key quote: “Local workforce officials expect that up to 8,000 KSC employees could lose jobs by the time the shuttle program ends.”
This Orlando Sentinel analysis of the various Congressional NASA budget proposals working their way through the House and Senate right now concludes, as I have been saying for months, that the future for NASA is not good. Key quote:
The plan orders NASA to build a heavy-lift rocket and capsule capable of reaching the International Space Station by 2016. But it budgets less money for the new spacecraft — about $11 billion during three years, with $3 billion next year — than what the troubled Constellation program would have received. That — plus the short deadline — has set off alarms.
The space war continues. The House Committee of Science and Technology has amended its budget proposal to include an extra shuttle flight, making its proposal match the Senate’s proposal in at least this one way.
In a blunt rejection of the Obama proposals for NASA, the Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee today reworked the NASA plan — handed to them last week by the committee that authorizes NASA’s budget — so that it more closely matched the House version. These changes cut in half the money for private commercial space while adding $3 billion to continue the development of the Orion capsule and the heavy lift version of the Ares rocket.
