endeavour

There's more than just football going on this Sunday. The shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to launch very early on Sunday morning, on what will be the first of a final five planned shuttle missions before the shuttle program is retired.

The primary goal of the flight is to attach the new Tranquility module to the left side of the lab complex to house life support gear, exercise equipment, and a robotics workstation. Astronauts plan to conduct three spacewalks before returning to Earth.

According to a Saturday post on NASA's Space Shuttle page, "the rotating service structure was … Read more

Running a month behind scheduled because of hydrogen leaks, launch pad lightning strikes and stormy weather, the shuttle Endeavour was refueled for a fifth launch try Monday to kick off a 16-day space station construction mission. Forecasters predicted a 60 percent chance of another delay due to expected afternoon storms.

Hoping for the best, engineers began pumping liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel to the shuttle's external tank at 9:33 a.m. EDT. The fueling procedure was completed at 12:37 p.m. EDT when engineers transitioned to "stable replenish" mode. The hydrogen vent line that … Read more

Sensors near a repaired hydrogen vent line attached to the shuttle Endeavour's external tank detected only the slightest traces of free hydrogen during a critical fueling test Wednesday, officials said, clearing the way for another launch attempt July 11.

The 7-inch vent line and the ground umbilical carrier plate used to connect it to a port on the side of the external tank will remain in their current configuration and engineers are confident the system will be leak-free when Endeavour is fueled for launch on a space station assembly mission.

"We're in really good shape," said Mike Moses, the shuttle program launch integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "We're going to try on the 11th...We got it lined up just right and it doesn't leak."

The vent line is used to carry excess hydrogen gas away from the shuttle when the tank is filled with super-cold propellant. A valve used to route hydrogen to the vent line is closed a few minutes before launch when the tank is pressurized for flight.

Endeavour was grounded June 13 and 17 when sensors near the umbilical attachment plate detected hydrogen concentrations of more than 60,000 parts per million, or 6 percent. The allowable concentration near the shuttle is 4 percent.

After the second launch scrub, engineers collected detailed measurements and concluded the problem was caused by an alignment issue between the hydrogen vent port on the tank and the vent line interface. To ensure a tight fit, engineers replaced a rigid Teflon seal with a more flexible design, modified the umbilical plate mounting pins, and installed washer-like shims to counteract the alignment issue.… Read more

A slight misalignment in the way a vent port on the shuttle Endeavour's external tank was built into the structure is the leading candidate for what caused gaseous hydrogen leaks that derailed two launch attempts June 13 and 17, the shuttle program manager said Friday.

The use of a different type of seal where the vent line attaches to the side of the external tank may resolve the problem, he said. The alternative seal design should provide a tighter fit that is less susceptible to the temperature-induced mechanical shrinkage and motion that can put uneven stress on the interface … Read more

Launch of the shuttle Atlantis on a mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope has been moved up one day and retargeted for May 11 at 2:01:49 p.m. EDT.

NASA officials said Wednesday that they hoped to push the launch date up in order to increase the odds of a successful launch before a deadline of May 14. But they needed to assess whether such a schedule change was feasible. Engineers and managers concluded Friday that processing could, in fact, be accelerated without affecting required work. Senior managers will hold an executive-level flight readiness review next Thursday … Read more

The space shuttle Endeavour was hauled to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center early Friday for work to prepare the ship for a flight NASA managers hope will never happen: a mission to rescue the astronauts charged with repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope.

The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for launch May 12 from pad 39A on NASA's fifth and final mission to the space telescope. Because Hubble operates in a different orbit, the Atlantis astronauts would not be able to seek safe haven aboard the International Space Station if any problems develop that might prevent … Read more

The space shuttle Endeavour, the designated rescue ship for next month's Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in case something goes awry, was hauled from its processing hangar to the vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Fla., early Friday.

Inside the vehicle assembly building, the shuttle will be attached to an external tank and solid-fuel boosters. Rollout to pad 39B is planned for April 17.

The shuttle Atlantis already is mounted atop pad 39A for work to ready the ship for blastoff on May 12, at 10:31 a.m. PDT, on a fifth and final … Read more

Enthusiasts of Microsoft 's Live Labs project Photosynth get a new environment to explore this morning. In addition to art galleries, town squares, and various buildings in Britain, users can now explore shuttle Endeavour before its launch on Wednesday. For those unfamiliar with Photosynth, it's a new technology that groups together a collection of photos taken in the same location into a 3D environment. Users can zoom in and out of various parts to take advantage of higher resolution shots that show more detail, while getting an idea of where they are spatially. In the case of the space … Read more