Discovery Set to Launch July 13

An anonymous reader writes "The US space shuttle is set to launch July 13 for the first time in nearly two and a half years, after being grounded following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA said today. NASA experts held a final 'flight readiness review' meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to make a final decision."

Re:Please tell me they at least have the ability

[wiredlogic]

They did run an experiment with the AERcam sprint [nasa.gov] on Columbia in '97. I believe the RF link only worked within the cargo bay so a belly insection would be out of the question.

It appears that they have a new model AERcam [nasa.gov] in development for use on ISS and shuttle inspections though.

Re:Greeeeaaaat

[aussersterne]

Mass produced them? A thousand identical probes? Just how advanced, intelligent, multi-functional do you think our "probes" can be right now? I don't know that we could come up with a really workable *dual* use design (say, one design that could go to both the moon and mars and do useful things), much less a design that would be useful for a *thousand* different exploration/testing tasks using an identical probe in each case.

What features that are currently technically feasable (at any cost) would you put into a "probe" such than 1,000 of them would actually be useful to us? Where would you send them?

It's not like we can currently build a machine (at any cost) that we can just send straight up into space with a single instruction to "explore everything, follow your whims, and tell us stuff" in anything more than a completely random, unintelligent (and thus not very scientifically useful) way.

Methinks you've been watching too much Star Trek.

Re:Apollo 13 wasn't so bad

[77Punker]

Nobody died in Apollo 13.

Re:Quite odd

[Boilermaker84]

One of the three "unmet" requirements is a usable repair kit. This has been the most technically challenging requirements to meet. NASA has done everything they can to come up with a method/materials to repair on orbit. You can't validate a zero-g repair option in a gravity environment, though. There's a kit in the payload bay which will support repair tests on orbit. The other two deal with ice/foam falling off the tank and hardening the orbiter from impacts. The tank bipod area has been redesigned entirely (this is where the foam came from on the Columbia mission). During the first tanking test, ice was noted to be forming on the O2 return line. Discovery was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, de-stacked and put on a tank/booster stack where the tank had a heater installed to prevent icing on the line (all future tanks will have this modification). The foam application process has been altered and the chances of a large piece of foam falling off are significantly reduced from where they were 2.5 years ago. NASA has maintained all along that foam debris could not be 100% eliminated. Hardeining of the Reinforced Carbon Carbon wing leading edge tiles was the last item. Since Bush has mandated the shuttle be retired by 2010, NASA doesn't have a long term plan in place for addressing this. What they do have is 66 accelerometers lining the inside of each wing to detect if something does hit the wing. High resolution imaging on orbit is in place. High resolution cameras will be watching everything during launch. Each orbiter is outfitted with a boom that is essentially an extension to the Canada arm and allows for inspection of the wing leading edges. NASA and its contractors have done just about everything they can to meet the last requirements without actually meeting them. There are a LOT of improvements over where things were in 2003. Those that make the decisions feel that the risk is minimal enough and that the plans to address anything that happens are sufficient to justify returning to flight.

1-800-KSC-INFO

[G27 Radio]

When I moved to Florida one of my friends gave me the number. It's great for knowing when to watch for a launch here--not just shuttles, but any launch from Kennedy Space Center.

If you call you'll hear in the first 10 seconds of the recorded message that the launch is currently targeted for July 13th. The message said the same as last time I checked a week or two ago.

Definately a handy number to have :)

1-800-KSC-INFO for anyone that didn't see the subject.