Blogger Note: Senior NASA managers are meeting at this hour in a Flight Readiness Review for the planned June 13 launch of Endeavour. A post-FRR news conference will be held late this afternoon, and we'll broadcast it live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer, and be sure to refresh this page for periodic updates.
The Endeavour astronauts are going through emergency escape training at the launch pad 39A and will take part Thursday in the final day of a practice countdown for a planned June 13 launch on an International Space Station assembly mission.
Countdown clocks are ticking backward here at Kennedy Space Center and Firing Room 4 at the Launch Control Center is fully staffed for the STS-127 Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test -- the last major pre-launch training exercise for the astronauts at KSC.
Mission commander Mark "Roman" Polansky and crewmates will don bright-orange partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits early Thursday and then depart crew quarters at the Operations & Checkout Building just as if it were an actual launch day.The six-man, one-woman crew will board NASA's silver-bullet AstroVan and make the 12-mile drive out to pad 39A. Then they'll board a small elevator and ascend to the 195-foot-level of the launch tower before crossing over a metal catwalk -- the Orbiter Access Arm.
A launch-pad team known as "the Close-Out Crew" will help the astronauts put on 80-pound parachute/survival packs, crawl through the orbiter's side hatch and then strap into seats on the crew cabin's flight deck and middeck.
The countdown clocks will continue clicking down to T-Minus 4 seconds and the astronauts will go through all communications and shuttle systems tests before the launch team simulates a main engine shutdown and launch pad abort.
An emergency escape drill will follow.
Polansky told reporters today that the training exercise is a critical part of preparing to launch on a shuttle mission.
"I personally have always thought that it is a really important, necessary part of what the entire team does. It certainly isn't just about the crew. As a matter of fact I would probably say the crew has a small part of it," the veteran shuttle pilot and mission commander said.
"Everyone now gets to put everything else aside and think STS-127 and Endeavour. So I think it focuses the team. It certainly gets them to look at a lot of things they are going to see on launch day. Hopefully, if there are any glitches, now is the time to find them out," Polansky said.
"From the crew perspective, for some people, they have never ever gotten up to the vehicle and strapped in one before. So I think it gives you a certain familiarity that will pay dividends when you do it for real," he added.
"For us also it gives us a chance to test all of our equipment, like our suits and our harnesses, and work some of the kinks out on those as well. So all in all, you know, I think it's just a really important thing to do."
Rookie pilot Douglas Hurley has been through the drill a few times as a member of an Astronaut Office group called the "Cape Crusaders" -- astronauts who work in support roles at KSC.
"I've spent a lot of time down here as a Cape Crusader, and strapped some crews in, so I've been in the vehicle quite a bit down here for terminal countdown tests and launch count, so that'll seem familiar. But being the guy actually getting strapped into the right seat for the first time, I think it's going to be really exciting, and I think it's going to be fun, and we're ready to go," Hurley said.
His crewmate Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, is just as psyched.
"It's exciting for me as a first time flyer to get this opportunity to be so close to the vehicle,: Cassidy said, "and tomorrow we'll get to get in our suits and climb in there and do a dry count and I really can't wait."
The crew also includes mission specialists David Wolf, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Julie Payette of the Candian Space Agency.
The start of the real three-day countdown to the June 13 launch is just seven days away, and Payette said the excitement already is palpable at the Cape.
"We're 10 days from launch, and we can tell that a shuttle is about to launch.
It's in the air," Payette said. "You guys have been around. You know that. You all old hat at it. I'm not. This is only my second time, and I just can't believe I'm doing this, and I'm doing this with these fine folks. It is still extremely exciting."
No comments:
Post a Comment