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Tropical Storm Hanna delays shuttle move, launch |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 07 September 2008
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 Two days later than originally planned, the space shuttle Atlantis rolled out to is launch pad on the Atlantic Coast on Thursday. The move to Launch Complex 39A, the primary shuttle launching platform, was delayed by Tropical Storm Hanna, which skirted by Florida’s coast earlier in the week before charging up the eastern United States seaboard. The storm dealt no damage to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The two-day delay will ripple through the mission timeline, pushing back the launch to service the Hubble Space Telescope to no earlier than October 8, 2008.
While Hanna ended up being of little concern, NASA officials are still keeping a wary eye on the horizon. Hurricane Ike, currently pounding the Bahamas, is of no threat to the Kennedy Space Center, but projected paths take it in the vicinity of New Orleans. The NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans builds the massive external fuel tanks for the space shuttle fleet and was out of service for several weeks following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Farther out in the Atlantic Ocean was Tropical Storm Josephine, which while slowly plodding to the west has struggled to maintain even tropical depression status, though is showing the potential for regeneration.
Even with the delay from Hanna and potentially other storms, NASA still has about four days of padding built into the launch schedule - more than enough time to even roll Atlantis back to the shelter of the Vehicle Assembly Building and back out to the launch pad again.
Atlantis’ October 8th launch will be the fifth and final servicing mission to the aging Hubble Space Telescope and the last space shuttle mission to anything other than the International Space Station. The 11-day mission will be commanded by US Astronaut Scott Altman and will consist of five spacewalks to repair and upgrade the telescope, including new batteries, gyroscopes, and cameras.
Because Atlantis would not be able to reach the ISS in the event of critical damage that would prevent the shuttle from safely reentering Earth’s atmosphere, NASA has decided to have a second shuttle - Endeavour - on standby at the neighboring Launch Complex 39B to serve as a quick-launch crew rescue craft. As Atlantis will not be loaded to the brim with supplies for the ISS, it will be able to carry enough supplies to sustain it and the seven person crew for 25 days while NASA launches Endeavour and the second shuttle moves to rendezvous. Given the number of safety improvements made since the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, NASA officials think the likelihood of having to launch such a rescue mission is very low.
After Atlantis returns safely to Earth, Endeavour will be moved to Launch Complex 39A and prepped for its November 12 launch to the International Space Station.
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