NASA expects Discovery to be securely fastened to its external tank by Saturday morning, after a technician enters the orbiter to help retrieve and attach loose nut. Engineers today determined it is structurally safe to enter the orbiter's aft compartment, where the nut is located, even though the vehicle is not yet fully secured to the tank.
The nut slipped out of position this morning during work to attach it to a separation bolt on the left rear side of the orbiter, one of three points where the spacecraft attaches to the tank.
The extra work delays by about a day Discovery's mating to the tank and solid rocket boosters inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.
But NASA says there won't be any impact on plans to roll Discovery to the launch pad Sept. 20 because multiple contingency days were built into the processing schedule.
To reach the aft compartment, teams are setting up three access platforms not normally in place during mating operations.
Discovery was rolled from its hangar into the assembly building Thursday morning and hoisted into High Bay 3 overnight.
The orbiter is still held by a sling attached to a crane. It is attached to the tank at its forward and right-rear attach points, but will not be declared "hard mated" until all three points are connected and tightened.
Another week will be spent testing connections between shuttle systems and preparing for rollout to pad 39A.
IMAGE: Earlier today in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, a large yellow, metal sling lowered shuttle Discovery to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
3 comments:
Where is "Antagonist" and his anti-NASA/space program garbage that he posts?? The Loser is a WALMART cart pusher.....
I guess we all need to get ready to be a third world nation in space, since we can't afford the Space Shuttle any more.
Dropped a nut, eh?
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
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