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Work will focus mainly on Discovery, as she presses ahead towards the January 7 rollover target. In preparation for her short trip to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), engineers will replace some TPS (Thermal Protection System) tiles on the crew hatch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is replacing some tiles on the crew hatch,\u201d noted processing information on the latest Shuttle Stand-up\/Integration report on L2. \u201cThese were removed yesterday and replacement work will continue through the Holiday period.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeld a Rollout Review with OPO (Orbiter Project Office) earlier this week; now ready for Rollout Review. Only constraint is changeout of two hatch tiles. Considered slurry repair, but R&R of tiles was best choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Managers are also proceeding towards the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) stage of the mission, with the dates set for the key SSP (Space Shuttle Program) and Agency level FRRs. The SSP FRR for STS-119 will be conducted on January 21-22. The NASA-HQ Level I FRR \u2013 which sets the launch date \u2013 will be held on February 3.<\/p>\n
On Endeavour, a week after her arrival back at KSC, following her ferry trip back from California, a large amount of processing work is taking place.<\/p>\n
Post flight \u2013 and post ferry \u2013 operations involve the removal of her tailcone that surrounds her aft, along with work to remove the \u201cLeonardo\u201d Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) from her payload bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cPayload removal is underway. (Have begun) tailcone removal,\u201d added processing information. \u201cWorking TPS post-flight inspections on vehicle (75 percent complete); WLE (Wing Leading Edge) thermography is about 50 percent complete. Will start window inspections later this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flow control valve x-rays have also started, along with preparations for the removal of Fuel Cell 2, which is to be performed on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPreparing for removal of flow control valve from OV-105 this weekend and will ship it to the vendor early next week,\u201d noted the stand-up report, which also added that work on the KU band system \u2013 which proved to be troublesome during docking \u2013 has also begun.<\/p>\n
Removal of Endeavour\u2019s three SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) will pick up over the holiday period, marking the end of the majority of post STS-126 operations, as the orbiter is prepared for her STS-127 mission in June.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/a214.jpg\")
Work out at Pad 39B continues to press ahead with operations for the first flight of the Ares I launch vehicle \u2013 notably via the construction of the three 600 feet tall lightning protection towers.<\/p>\nIvey Construction of Merritt Island, Florida are the contractor for the $28 million project that will oversee the construction of the giant towers, which are already rising out of the ground around Pad 39B, with the next stage set to begin shortly.<\/p>\n
That was marked by the arrival of a giant crane at the pad, which is so tall it has the ability to reach as high as the top of the VAB. (See L2 over 100 hi res images of Pad 39B\u2019s modifications since 2007 and the blueprints to the towers).<\/p>\n
While not the biggest crane in the world, the Manitowoc 21000 will easily aid the finalization of the three towers that will protect Ares I from direct lightning strikes (click here for the crane\u2019s product guide).<\/p>\n
The crane likely to remain in use at Pad 39B for around four months, at a cost of around one million dollars per month.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/a312.jpg\")
2009 will also mark the opening work on the biggest modification to Pad 39B, the construction of a huge rollercoaster that will become the Emergency Egress System (EES) for astronauts and pad crew, in the event of a major problem with the Ares I vehicle at the pad.<\/p>\nNo fixed date has yet been given for the construction of the rollercoaster, which will take several years to build, with design work still taking place at contractor RS&H, on a project that also involves Disney engineers.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, over in High Bay 4 (HB4) of the VAB, preparations for the Ares I-X test flight continue, with the mating of Interstage #2 to Interstage #1. This operation will wrap up Ares I-X activities until after the holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAres I-X: IS-2 to IS-1 Mate Preps were completed yesterday,\u201d noted L2 processing information on Friday. \u201cMate will be in-work today. IS-2 ECS Installation will be continued after IS-2 to IS-1 mate. US-2\/US-3 & US-4 DFI Installations are continuing today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The launch date for Ares I-X \u2013 currently slated for July, but could slip to October \u2013 will become clearer next month, following the decision on the STS-400 pad options in support of May\u2019s STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Should Endeavour (STS-400) require 39B, Ares I-X will be delayed.<\/p>\n
L2 members<\/em><\/em>: All documentation \u2013 from which the above article has quoted snippets \u2013 is available in full in the related L2 sections, now over 4000 gbs in size.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Processing will continue on two orbiters through the Christmas holidays, with work required on both Discovery and Endeavour. Meanwhile, a huge crane has been built up to support the final construction of the 600ft Ares I lightning protection towers at Pad 39B. The bulk of the workforce at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) belong to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[9166,9203,9123,9038],"class_list":["post-41233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ares-i","tag-ares-i-x","tag-sts-119","tag-sts-127"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41233"}],"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=41233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}