The countdown to shuttle Discovery's Wednesday launch from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station officially begins today.The mission's seven astronauts, led by Air Force Col. Lee Archambault, are scheduled to arrive at KSC around 3 p.m. today, nearly two months after visiting the spaceport for a countdown dress rehearsal.
You can track the progress of their flights on T-38 jets from Houston's Ellington Field to KSC's landing strip here.
And you can watch live coverage of the crew's arrival by clicking on the NASA TV image at right to launch a NASA TV viewer.
The countdown to Wednesday's 9:20 p.m. launch is scheduled to begin shortly after the crew's arrival, at 7 p.m.
KSC workers will be called to their stations at 6:30 p.m.
They'll get to work on final vehicle and facility closeouts for launch, check-out of backup flight systems, configuration of avionics systems for launch, review of flight software stored in mass memory units and display systems and verification of backup flight system software in Discovery's general purpose computer.
Mission commander Archambault will be joined by pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Joe Acaba - a former teacher at Melbourne High - Ricky Arnold, John Phillips, Steve Swanson and Koichi Wakata.
You can read more about Acaba's ties to the Space Coast in this Florida Today story.
The crew's goal during a two-week mission is to install the final segment of the station's skeletal backbone, or truss, which will measure the length of a football field when complete. The last truss segment, shown at left, holds a final set of power-generating solar wings that the crew will deploy on the station's starboard side.
If successful, the station will be fully powered for the first time, increasing the power available for science experiments and supporting a planned May expansion of station crews to six people.
Wakata will replace ISS flight engineer Sandra Magnus, who flew to the station on Endeavour in November. He'll become the first Japanese astronaut to complete a long-duration mission in space.
Here's a fact sheet providing more background about the STS-119 mission.
NASA managers last week gave the go-ahead to fly after determining that a set of valves in the shuttle's main propulsion system did not pose an immediate danger.
IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the photo of the STS-119 crew members posing on the 225-foot level of Launch Pad 39A on Jan. 21 after practicing emergency egress from the pad. From left are mission specialists Richard Arnold and Steve Swanson, pilot Tony Antonelli, commander Lee Archambault, and mission specialists Koichi Wakata, John Phillips and Joseph Acaba. The crew also took part in a simulated launch countdown, part of the prelaunch preparation known as Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT. The TCDT also includes equipment familiarization. Discovery is targeted to launch on the STS-119 mission March 11. During the 14-day mission, the crew will install the S6 truss segment and solar arrays to the starboard side of the International Space Station, completing the station's truss, or backbone. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett. Below, In the Space Station Processing Facility at KSC in December, the S6 truss segment is on display for the media. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
No comments:
Post a Comment