CHICAGO, ILL (WBBM Newsradio 780) -- The seven crew members for the next space shuttle mission, including an astronaut from suburban Chicago, arrived Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center to begin final preparations for this week’s launch. A short time later, NASA started the official countdown clock leading to the 8:20 p.m. CDT liftoff on Wednesday.
"I wanted to welcome you here to the Kennedy Space Center and tell you how thankful we are for this launch coming up on Wednesday," said Discovery Commander Lee Archambault during a media briefing at the Kennedy Space Center landing strip. The Bellwood-native (pictured above) and the six other shuttle crew members flew to Florida where they will take part in pre-launch training exercises. “We look forward to having a very nice launch Wednesday evening.”
If Archambault and his fellow astronauts felt a bit of déjà vu it may be because they went through this routine before back in January before NASA delayed their mission because of engine problems with the shuttle. Discovery had initially been scheduled for launch on Feb. 12 but was grounded when engineers ordered additional tests for the valves that control the flow of hydrogen gas into the orbiter’s external fuel tank during liftoff. One of those valves broke off during Endeavour's launch last November but caused no damage. The mission had to be delayed four times while engineers fixed the problem.
"We're very happy it's been resolved successfully," Archambault said. "We're ready to get going.” He thanked the NASA engineers and workers who helped get Discovery ready for launch. “We just wanted to thank publicly all the great work that’s been done by NASA agencies across the country over this past month or so to take care of the flow control valve problem."
The Discovery mission will be the second trip into space for Archambault, 48, a veteran NASA astronaut since 1998. He piloted an Atlantis mission to the space station in 2007. This time around he and his crew will deliver the final set of solar wings to the International Space Station. The panels will enable the orbiting lab to generate more power to accommodate six member crews starting later this year. The 14-day mission will include four spacewalks to install and deploy the new solar wings.
"We're very excited to be bringing the S6 truss up to the space station to give its final complement of power and we're ready to get it going Wednesday afternoon," he said. The Proviso West High School grad will be joined on the STS-119 mission by pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.
Discovery will also deliver a new crew member, Wakata, to ISS to replace astronaut Sandra Magnus of Belleville who has been aboard the space station since last November. Magnus will hitch a ride back to Earth aboard the shuttle.
NASA cleared Discovery for launch following a Flight Readiness Review on Friday at the Kennedy Space Center. During the meeting, top space agency managers and engineers put the engine valve issue to rest. Their decision followed extensive testing of the gas valves that control the flow of hydrogen gas into the orbiter’s external fuel tank during liftoff. NASA said a fragment from a cracked valve could rupture the shuttle’s fuel lines and cause a catastrophic explosion.
“These are extremely tiny cracks,” said NASA Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon about the fractures discovered during exhaustive testing of the valves. “If you took five sheets of paper and squished them together with your fingers that would be how long it was. The width of it is about one micron.” Ground crews replaced all three valves and pronounced Discovery’s engines free of defects.
“The vehicle's in great shape and we're ready to pick up with our normal countdown," said Shannon who blamed the valve problem on wear and tear. “It is just one of those problems that you have to keep working at. You have to keep doing the research, the analysis and the hardware tests and finally we got to that point.”
The Discovery mission schedule could still come unraveled if liftoff has to be delayed again for some unforeseen problem. NASA has until March 16 to get the shuttle off the ground to avoid a conflict with the next Russian Soyuz mission to ISS on March. 26. After that, April 7 would be the next time Discovery could launch without a Soyuz conflict.
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