Just some updates:
1) NASA has picked some science to do from the Moon, and they’re pretty cool. Two of them deal with laser ranging, getting the distance to the Moon to sub-millimeter accuracy. This will tell us a lot about relativity, the Earth-Moon system, and other fun things.
2) The Shuttle launch has been delayed a day because replacing a valve took longer than expected. It’ll be on Wednesday, August 8, at 6:36 p.m. Eastern time.
3) I haven’t mentioned it, but a global dust storm on Mars is severely hampering the rovers. Hubble turned its eye to the Red Planet, and Emily has the scoop, and the images. Yikes. It sucks to be on Mars right now.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Here’s why they decided to delay STS-118 by a day:
They did a final cabin leak check and found a leaky cabin pressure relief valve in the orbiter cabin. Unfortunately, both valves are located behind the space toilet area back wall, which meant extra time to remove fixtures and panels to gain access (total R&R was estimated at around 8 hours).
During a meeting the next day, they decided to remove a known good valve from Atlantis (which just returned from STS-117) as a replacement. That valve was removed, then bench-tested to again verify it was working properly, then transported to the pad.
At the same time, once Endeavour’s valve was able to be accessed it was isolated and tested - and verified that it was the actual cause of the pressure leak. (It was removed, bench tested again to double check the leakage, then express-shipped to the vendor to determine the cause and be repaired).
The replacement valve was then installed into Endeavour late Thursday night and tested ok by itself. They then scheduled an early Friday morning cabin leak check which went excellent (no leakage at all).
However, since an all-up leak test is still required (cabin + airlock + tunnel + Spacehab), and since it does take extra time to set up and conflicts with lots of other internal cabin operation and setup schedules, the decision was made to add an extra day.
That way the other final pre-launch things to do in the cabin won’t be pressured time-wise by the need for a final all-out leak test.
(references and some additional details:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/cat.asp?cid=6 )
August 4th, 2007 at 1:10 am
>>> It sucks to be on Mars right now.
Yeah, it would be really annoying to have all that dust in your eyes as you were asphyxiating.
August 4th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Cool. The moon has been neglected for far too long. It’s almost like we know more about Mars now than we do about the moon.
August 4th, 2007 at 6:24 am
“It sucks to be on Mars right now.”
Well, Lott thinks we’re all gonna die in August so I don’t think I’d be traveling there anyway.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:31 am
didn’t we already place laser reflectors on the moon the 1st time?