Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Discovery secured to launch pad

Space shuttle Discovery is on Launch Pad 39A this morning after making an overnight trip from Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building.

The shuttle was secured on the launch pad by 1:49 a.m.‬, a little more than six hours after exiting the Vehicle Assembly Building at 7:23 p.m. Monday. ‪

More than 3,000 employees and family members were issued passes to watch the historic rollout.

Discovery is targeting a Nov. 1 launch to the International Space Station. It's scheduled to be its final mission.

Read about its final voyage here.

IMAGE: Space shuttle Discovery is attached to launch pad 39A as the sun rises over Kennedy Space Center this morning. It took the spacecraft about six hours to make the journey, known as "rollout," from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad. Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do they roll it out in the middle of hurricane season? Why don't they wait until a few days or a week before blast off?

Anonymous said...

Chances of rolling back due to a storm is slim to none. It takes at least a month to process and prepare the Space Shuttle before launch. There is a lot of work to be done.

Graham (from england) said...

I echo the second annonymous.It's not like rolling a car out you know,there's hundreds and hundreds of things to complete at the pad before launch day.It all takes time,and has to be done with the shuttle in launch position.She looks MAJESTIC sitting there floodlit in the night .!!! I hope to come over and see the very last shuttle flight,if congress appoves it for early next year.

Anonymous said...

Why does it take so long to roll out? It isn't full of fuel is it? It lands at a very fast speed so why the 6 hour roll out?

Anonymous said...

there are about 7 MILLION pounds of hardware in that "stack". You don't think you could drive it out to the pad at 15 or 20 MPH do you? No it is NOT full of cryogenic fuel (the external tank holds liquid hydrogen and oxygen). Yes it lands WITHOUT the SRB's and the ET and has to FLY (glide)in. Geez!

Anonymous said...

Now that the rocket scientists wanna-be's have had their say; they do it at night so you cannot see all the patches and repairs done to the orbitor tiles. There is almost always less wind late evenings. As for the speed, whats the rush when your paid by the hour, real no brainer!

Anonymous said...

In reality tile damage has been almost eliminated in the last three years by improvements in the foam, and with a load over 300 feet tall and weighing over 1000 tons, it would be absurd to speed. Why so many people in this area disparage the Shuttle is beyond me. Our current problems began when George Bush canceled the Shuttle program in 2004 he began the termination of supply contracts and destruction of tooling. Shortly after Obama was elected, and inquiries were made as to whether the Shuttle program could continue, no less than Wayne Hale, Shuttle program manager, said that it was two years too late. Strangely, most Brevard Republicans believe Obama canceled the Shuttle.

Anonymous said...

They also blame Obama for everything that Bush actually signed into law such as the TARP bailouts, the bank bailouts, etc. When you have an uneducated populace that only get thier news fromn one source : Faux News, this is what you get.
We are the Roman Empire 2.0.