NASA will hold a news briefing at noon today to discuss plans to launch Discovery on its 39th and final flight and whether the agency will be able to fly in a short window that opens Dec. 17 and closes Dec. 20.
The timing of the briefing, which comes a day after a meeting of senior managers, indicates that the launch might be pushed to the next opportunity in February. NASA engineers still have not determined the root cause of cracks found in Discovery's external tank, and it's possible that ongoing tests and analyses would not be complete in time to launch during the Dec. 17-Dec. 20- window.
The briefing participants are:
-- Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations
-- John Shannon, Space Shuttle Program manager
-- Mike Suffredini, International Space Station Program manager
You can watch the briefing live here in The Flame Trench. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.
3 comments:
job security
not really - if 133 is delayed too much, there won't be time to launch 135 this year, so it may not fly at all
Feb 3rd, Apr 1, and June 28...the beat goes on
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