Sunday, June 14, 2009

Watch Live: Managers to discuss Endeavour status

Editor's note: The news conference time has now been pushed back to 5:30 p.m.

NASA managers are expected to begin a news conference shortly at Kennedy Space Center to discuss their plan for launching space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station.

The news conference was scheduled to start at 5 p.m., and you can watch it live here.

Just click on the NASA TV still image on the right side of this page to launch a viewer.

Saturday's scheduled 7:17 a.m. launch attempt was scrubbed because of leaking hydrogen gas during fueling operations.

The question is whether Endeavour could try to launch again as early as Wednesday morning, following repairs to a vent line, and bump an unmanned rocket launch that was scheduled the same afternoon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Or, will NASA wait for the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to lift off with two moon-bound satellites, and hope to have one attempt for Endeavour on Saturday?

If Endeavour doesn't launch by then, the planned 16-day space station assembly mission would have to wait until at least July 11 because of power issues resulting from the sun's angle to the station for several weeks.

At launch pad 39A today, technicians began working on the troublesome vent line that has leaked gaseous hydrogen during fueling for two of the last three missions.

Shuttle Discovery faced the same problem in March, delaying its launch slightly. Some seals were swapped out of the vent line and Discovery blasted off successfully on the second attempt.

The same repair process was expected to be repeated for Endeavour.

The vent line routes excess hydrogen gas from the 15-story external tank to a flare stack near the pad so it is burned off safely.

IMAGES: Technicians at Kennedy Space Center today inspected and detached from the external tank a vent line that routes excess hydrogen gas to a flare stack where it is safely burned.

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