Nerves were once again being wracked around the world as Discovery and her crew of seven prepared for the dangers of entry interface \u2013 the first since flagship Columbia was lost at the same point of the mission. <\/p>\n
Preparations had been on schedule, but low cloud at the landing strip have called off the first attempt. Discovery\u2019s second attempt has also been called off.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working this pretty hard as I\u2019m sure you can imagine from our silence down here,\u201d Johnson Space Center\u2019s Mission Control Center called up to Discovery. \u201cWe just can\u2019t get comfortable with the stability of the situation for this particular opportunity so we are going to officially wave you off for 24 hours.\u201d<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Discovery\u2019s first chance to land on Tuesday is at 10:08 UK time on Tuesday, with alternative sites in California and New Mexico should Florida\u2019s weather remain unfavourable.<\/font><\/p>\n The crew awoke to Dexy\u2019s<\/font> Midnight Runner\u2019s \u2018Come on Eileen\u2019 and began to power up systems required by Discovery for re-entry. <\/font><\/p>\n \u201cI think Discovery is in absolutely great shape,\u201d said Discovery Commander Eileen Collins in a news conference Sunday. \u201cI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty confident about re-entry, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking about the landing.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n The K-Band antenna was stowed back into the cargo bay \u2013 and the payload bay doors were closed at 6am UK time.<\/font><\/p>\n Tomorrow, after an Auxiliary Power Unit is fired up, Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center will give a go for de-orbit burn. Discovery will then fire her Orbital Manoeuvring System engines for three minutes to slow the spaceship down. <\/font><\/p>\n (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Entry interface will then occur 30 minutes later, as gravity starts to pull on Discovery\u2019s body, dragging her down as she races into Earth\u2019s atmosphere at 17,000 mph. <\/font><\/p>\n Arriving over Central America at a speed of Mach 20, Discovery will conduct two roll reversal, on to the left and one to the right, to lose speed. <\/font><\/p>\n With plasma trailing from her entry and super hot gasses glowing all around her, 25 minutes will have elapsed from the point of entry interface to a velocity of less that mach 2.5. <\/font><\/p>\n Slowing all the time, Discovery will break down from the speed of sound just over two minutes later, sounding her arrival at KSC with two sonic booms that will be heard for miles around. <\/font><\/p>\n Such is the noise, locals have been warned what to expect, with a report in the local paper, Florida Today. <\/font><\/p>\n \u201cThe reason why there\u2019s two booms with the shuttle, instead of one with military jets, is because the nose breaks the sound barrier before the tail does,\u201d NASA\u2019s Bill Johnson said. \u201cThe orbiter\u2019s the size of an airliner, and fighter jets aren\u2019t that long.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll wake you up in the morning,\u201d added longtime Melbourne resident Robert Trice said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not a hard sleeper, it\u2019ll sure wake you up.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n Less than a minute after returning out of the speed of sound, Discovery will begin the HAC turn, taking a large circle to line up with the runway. <\/font><\/p>\n Dropping out of the sky several times faster than a normal aircraft, Discovery will glide down to the runway before lifting her nose with the landing gear down to touch Earth for the first time since she left the pad on July 26. <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With brakes and a drag parachute, Discovery is set to wheel stop on the runway.<\/p>\n For live updates and images, click here: <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nerves were once again being wracked around the world as Discovery and her crew of seven prepared for the dangers of entry interface \u2013 the first since flagship Columbia was lost at the same point of the mission. Preparations had been on schedule, but low cloud at the landing strip have called off the first […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-42322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42322"}],"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=42322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/em>http:\/\/forum.nasaspaceflight.com\/forums\/thread-view.asp?tid=267&posts=73<\/em><\/p>\n