Shuttle Discovery is closing in on a Tuesday morning stroll to Launch Pad B, where it\u2019s hoped she will remain \u2013 trouble free for the six weeks ahead \u2013 only to move again one late afternoon in May, in an upwards direction on an occasion that will signal the Orbiter\u2019s Return to Flight.\n<\/p>\n
Tasked with implementing a whole array of new safety modifications and requirements \u2013 insisted on by conclusions drawn in the wake of the mountainous Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report \u2013 the United Space Alliance (USA) quiet literally dedicated a 24\/7 shift scheduling upon their pool of talented and committed engineers and specialists to get to this point \u2013 once again edging out of the carnivorous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for a four mile crawl to the launch pad.<\/font> <\/font> With major milestones yet to be concluded before spectators can start to firmly pencil May 15 to June 3 into their diaries \u2013 not least the critical April 14 Tank Testing and the readiness and availability of Discovery\u2019s STS-300 safety net, Shuttle Atlantis \u2013 it won\u2019t be until Commander Eileen Collins and her pilot Lt. Col James Kelly can confirm wheel stop on the Discovery once back on terra firma that there will be a sense of conclusion to the work that has \u2013 and still is \u2013 going in to make STS-114 a successful Return to Flight.<\/font> <\/font> This weekend marks more work \u2013 again including elements that have been borne out of the CAIB report \u2013 with Friday starting a test process that verifies the interfacing between the three major elements that make up the STS stack (Orbiter, Twin Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tank) \u2013 all three components have been bolted together on top of the Mobile Launch Platform.<\/font> <\/font> Providing the tests pass for permission to be granted for the stack to leave the VAB \u2013 permission which will wait until an extra digital camera is tactically placed on the underside of Discovery \u2013 Tuesday morning could see one of the VAB doors sliding upwards to reveal the route down \u201cThe Causeway\u201d which all Shuttles have taken ahead of a launch since 1981.<\/font> <\/font> One of the NASA crawler transporters will then ease the billions of dollars worth of hardware to the waiting launch pad on the coastline, an event in itself that is bound to cause hearts racing inside the employees of the Kennedy Space Center \u2013 if they aren\u2019t already.<\/font> <\/font> Still, while passions may rise high, everyone still has their game faces on to ensure Discovery and her crew of seven have a safe and successful Return to Flight mission \u2013 safety being the buzz word.<\/font> <\/font> \u201cIn terms of everything we\u2019ve done, I think it\u2019s the safest vehicle we\u2019ve ever flown,\u201d said Steve Poulos, Manager of the Orbiter Project Office, to reporters inside the VAB upon Discovery\u2019s long-awaited arrival. \u201cIf you look at all the inspections we have done across the entire vehicle\u2026it\u2019s an order of magnitude that we have a safe vehicle.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shuttle Discovery is closing in on a Tuesday morning stroll to Launch Pad B, where it\u2019s hoped she will remain \u2013 trouble free for the six weeks ahead \u2013 only to move again one late afternoon in May, in an upwards direction on an occasion that will signal the Orbiter\u2019s Return to Flight. Tasked with […]<\/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-42426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42426"}],"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=42426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}