Space Shuttle Discovery finally left the confines of her Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) in the early hours of cold March 29th, as United Space Alliance workers carefully guided the multi-billion dollar vehicle along the quarter-mile route into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), achieving a major milestone in NASA\u2019s progress towards their Return To Flight mission, STS-114.\n<\/p>\n
A large amount of journalists and camera crews \u2013 in attendance at the Kennedy Space Center to report the event \u2013 were made to wait patiently through the night for the first public glimpse of the Shuttle departing the OPF, as a series of delayed ensued \u2013 due to problems aligning and attaching the transporter the belly of the Orbiter. However, by 1:30am local time, Discovery started to move \u2013 tail first \u2013 out of the building she\u2019s called home for the past few years.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Discovery is tasked with leading the Shuttle Fleet on their much-awaited Return to Flight, with the test flight mission \u2018STS-114\u2019 \u2013 currently being pencilled in for a May 15 launch from the Kennedy Space Center.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n It\u2019s been well-over two years since Discovery and her two sisters Atlantis and Endeavour were grounded \u2013 following the loss of Shuttle Columbia and her crew of seven in February 2003 while on re-entry.<\/font><\/p>\n To return the fleet back to flight following the disaster, NASA was tasked with carrying out the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) \u2013 a body which was set-up to determine the mishap that caused the loss of Columbia. <\/font><\/p>\n The lengthy CAIB report confirmed that a piece of insulation foam \u2013 that had broken away from the External Tank (ET), in itself an often-seen event during launch \u2013 impacted and breached the leading edge of the Orbiter\u2019s left wing, not long after \u201cthrottle up\u201d on the flagship\u2019s ill-fated launch. Super-hot gases \u2013 experienced on re-entry \u2013 entered the internal structure of Columbia\u2019s left wing, ultimately leading to the break up of the Orbiter \u2013 high over Texas, less than half an hour before she and her crew were due to land at the Kennedy Space Centre.<\/font><\/p>\n With a redesigned ET \u2013 as well as the bolted on twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) \u2013 waiting for the Orbiter in the 52-storey VAB, Discovery will find herself lifted up vertically by a giant crane \u2013 up and over the ET and SRBs stack \u2013 and gently lowered into position for mating, making the Space Transportation System (STS) that will carry Commander Eileen Collins and her crew of six to the International Space Station (ISS) in what will be a test flight for the host of modifications made since the break up of Columbia on STS-107.<\/font><\/p>\n Once stacked, Discovery will head out to the launch pad early next week, atop of a Mobile Launch Platform, carried by one of NASA\u2019s two giant Crawlers that the Kennedy Space Center has at its disposal. Both Crawlers \u2013 which painstakingly transport the stack to the pad at a dizzy one mile per hour \u2013 have been re-fitted with new tracks during the Shuttle-less 26 month period in which the fleet has been grounded.<\/font><\/p>\n Rocket building kits (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n A series of critical tests will be carried out once at the launch pad. Those tests in themselves will be one of the major determining factors on whether Discovery will lead Return to Flight within the May 12 to June 3rd window. <\/font><\/p>\n One of the other critical elements \u2013 that will decide the timing of STS-114\u2019s launch \u2013 will be the processing status of Shuttle Atlantis, as she prepares for mission STS-121 \u2013 targeted for July of this year. Atlantis has to be in a position to be available for a rescue mission, designated STS-300, within a maximum allowance of a one month accelerated processing-to-launch window proceeding Discovery\u2019s lift-off on STS-114.<\/font><\/p>\n Shuttle manager Bill Parsons recently noted to reporters that an update on when the agency expects to launch Discovery on STS-114 will be noted in the middle of April.<\/font><\/p>\n NASA Space Flight would like to thank and accredit Justin Ray\u2019s updated coverage of the rollover of Discovery to the VAB on <\/em><\/font>http:\/\/www.spaceflightnow.com\/<\/em><\/font> for contributing towards the information used in this report.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Space Shuttle Discovery finally left the confines of her Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) in the early hours of cold March 29th, as United Space Alliance workers carefully guided the multi-billion dollar vehicle along the quarter-mile route into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), achieving a major milestone in NASA\u2019s progress towards their Return To Flight mission, […]<\/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-42429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42429"}],"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=42429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}