NASA aims to roll shuttle Endeavour out to launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center this week, a move that will set the stage to launch -- if need be -- a mission to rescue a Hubble Space Telescope servicing crew.Now stacked in High Bay No. 1 of the landmark Vehicle Assembly Building, Endeavour is slated to start a 4.2-mile move out to the pad at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
A giant tracked transporter originally built for the Apollo moon-landing project will haul Endeavour down a river-rock crawlerway that stretches between the assembly building and the pad.
With the transporter crawling at less than one mile per hour, the trip is expected to take six to eight hours to complete.
Sistership Atlantis, which already is at launch pad 39A, is slated to be launched May 12 on NASA's fifth and final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Endeavour and four astronauts will be ready to launch within seven days if Atlantis sustains critical damage during the Hubble mission.
If no rescue mission is required, then Endeavour would roll to pad 39A for a targeted June 13 launch on a mission to deliver the third and final section of the Japanese Kibo science research facility to the International Space Station.Endeavour was moved late last week from its processing hangar to the 52-story assembly building. Crane operators with United Space Alliance hoisted the 122-foot-long orbiter up and over a 16th-floor transom and then down onto a mobile launcher platform in High Bay 1.
Endeavour then was connected to an external tank that already had been equipped with twin solid rocket boosters.
Engineers this week are conducting a series of tests aimed at verifying mechanical and electrical connections between the orbiter, the tank, the boosters and the shuttle's mobile launcher platform.
No significant problems are being worked on either Endeavour or Atlantis.
ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge the NASA photos that show the orbiter Endeavour being lowered onto a mobile launcher platform in High Bay No. 1 of the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building. You can also click the enlarged images to get even bigger, more detailed views of the mating operation. In the second photo, you can see a technician on a work platform on the lefthand side of the shuttle, a view that puts the size of the shuttle in perspective. Photo credit: NASA/Troy Cryder.
2 comments:
Interesting. Is there a website that I can visit to learn more about the configuration of Endeavor as a "Rescue" vehicle?
Check out floridatoday.com/hubble. In the lower half of the screen, there's a graphic that explains how the rescue mission would work based on the planning last fall. Also: there's more to come on this issue from us in the coming weeks.
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