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\u201cCTS (Call To Stations) is planned for 16:00 today, with first motion to Pad A expected at 20:00.\u201d UPDATE: Discovery\u2019s first motion was ahead of schedule, at 7:23pm local.<\/p>\n
The schedule remained on track thanks to the resolution of a Problem Report (PR) charged against a damaged bolt on the T-0 umbilical, associated with the left hand Tail Service Mask (TSM) carrier plate.<\/p>\n
The issue was cleared after engineers drilled through the bolt, allowing for its removal, ahead of the installation of a a temporary replacement. Additional work on the T-0 bolt, in order to configure the vehicle for launch, will take place during Discovery\u2019s pad flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cPR 9986, LH (Left Hand) lower T-0 umbilical bolt damage: A temporary bolt, nut, and washer was installed Friday evening to configure the T-0 for rollout,\u201d added the NTD report. \u201cAny additional work required will be performed at the pad. Platforms that access this area have been dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n
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STS-133 Specific Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/sts-133\/<\/p>\n
A leak out at the pad \u2013 relating to one of the GH2 racks at 39A\u2019s GH2 farm \u2013 was also cleared from being a constraint to rollout.<\/p>\n
\u201cPad-A: A leak was detected on one of the three GH2 Racks in the Pad A GH2 Farm. On Friday, GH2 in the rack was burned off, the rack was inerted, and a nose seal was repaired. The rack was pressurized to 500 and verified there were no leaks. Sampling will occur today and GH2 recharging will pickup once good samples are verified,\u201d noted the NTD report.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngineering analysis of Pad using ground penetrating radar has been completed. There are no concerns and no operational constraints levied against pad operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/t3.jpg\" "\\"t3\\"")
After arriving at the pad, in what appears to be one of the fastest rollouts seen in recent years, Discovery is now moving into pad validation work, which includes mating the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) to the External Tank in the early hours of Tuesday, and the Rotating Service Structure (RSS) being translated into the mate position on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\u201cS0009 Launch Pad Validation: CTS is planned for 02:30 Tuesday morning. OAA (Orbiter Access Arm) extend, GVA (GOX Vent Arm) align, ET\/IT (Intertank) Access Arm extend, and GUCP mate will all be performed once the vehicle is hard down at the pad Tuesday morning,\u201d the NTD added.<\/p>\n
\u201cRSS rotation to the mate position is planned for 21:30 Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Live updates and coverage are being provided on the STS-133 forum section.<\/p>\n
ET-122 Ready To Ship:<\/p>\n
ET-122 has been loaded on to the Pegasus Barge at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, ahead of setting sail for a several day journey to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This is the last tank to be shipping from MAF under the current Space Shuttle Program (SSP) manifest.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/A315.jpg\" "\\"A3\\"")
The tank sports a number of repair patches on its LOX tank, which were required after the tank sustained damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.<\/p>\nDuring the hurricane, the roof of the building that housed the tank was ripped off by high winds. After falling debris damaged the tank, it was removed from the shuttle flight manifest. Lockheed Martin engineers assessed the damage, and prepared and executed a tank restoration plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cHurricane Katrina damaged ET-122 in Cell A when concrete fell from the roof and hit some areas of the tank,\u201d noted Lockheed Martin\u2019s ET Program Manager Wanda Sigur in 2008. \u201cWe\u2019ve been asked to put together a proposal about ET-122 to determine how and when the tank could be returned to the fleet for NASA to evaluate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working on that. ET-122 could be used possibly as a launch-on-need tank or for other NASA objectives in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/A411.jpg\" "\\"A4\\"")
ET-122 \u2013 partnered with Atlantis \u2013 was assigned as the LON (Launch On Need) support of STS-134, under the designation \u201cSTS-135, LON Support for STS-134\u201d. However, pre-empting the conclusion of the on-going political process, relating to the funding of STS-135, managers hold the option of switching ET-122 to STS-134, allowing the newer ET-138 to fly with STS-135.<\/p>\nThis was confirmed by a recent Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) meeting, which opted to delay the tank allocation decision until the latest possible point in the schedule \u2013 currently mid November.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen ET-122 arrives at KSC it will be lifted into the VAB HB-4 (High Bay 4) Checkout cell for processing since ET-138 currently is occupying the HB-2 Checkout Cell,\u201d noted KSC managers on the PRCB presentation (L2).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe STS-134 SRB stack is currently located in HB-1 and will have to be \u2018rolled around\u2019 to HB-3 after STS-133 rolls out to the pad in order to support and ET-122\/BI-145 (STS-134) ET\/SRB mate.<\/p>\n
\u201cResponse: Putting ET-122 on STS-134 will result in ET mate moving to Nov 18th, to support VAB OPS for the 18th, KSC final tank decision date is Nov 10th.\u201d<\/p>\n
ET-122 is expected to arrive at KSC on Sunday, September 26.<\/p>\n
(Lead Photograph: Larry Sullivan, NASASpaceflight.com and MaxQ Entertainment)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In what is highly likely to be her final rollout, Discovery \u2013 as the STS-133 stack \u2013 departed from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) Monday evening (7:23pm local time), before making good time for an arrival at Pad 39A, just after 1:15am. Meanwhile, the final External Tank (ET-122) \u2013 sporting its numerous repair patches \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9051],"class_list":["post-40654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-sts-133"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}