14 DAY TRIAL // Mission planners and controllers at NASA finally gave their go-ahead to have the space shuttle Discovery roll out to its launch pad one last time this Monday, on January 31.
The experts, together with NASA top officials, believe that the orbiter is ready to undertake its final mission to the International Space Station (ISS), delivering supplies, a large cargo container and a robot developed by the American space agency with General Motors.
The new schedule calls for Discovery to be taken out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, on Monday. It will then begin the hours-long rollout.
The maneuver will last in excess of six hours, and will see the rocket and its Crawler-Transporter vehicle traveling some 3.4 miles, until they reach the seaside Launch Pad 39A facility.
At this point, the space shuttle is scheduled to be launched on February 24, taking the place that Endeavor originally occupied in the flight manifest. The other orbiter is now due to launch in April, Space reports.
Discovery's main cargo includes the Multipurpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Leonardo, the Robonaut 2 robotic assistant, space parts, scientific experiments, and other supplies for the Expedition 26 crew.
It has been sequestered in the VAB for about a month, after being returned there in late December. It was originally supposed to take off in early November, but damages on its external fuel tank and other systems delayed the launch date.
Now, after analyzing the cracks found in EFT support beams called stringers, officials at NASA are convinced that they were able to find and repair all of them. In the mean time, it was found that the reason this external tank is so damaged is because it was made of a poorer batch of materials.
Engineering crews at the KSC worked around the clock to add new material to the areas that were damaged on account of the poor manufacturing. They finished their work just a few days ago.
“Technicians in NASA Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building have completed all mechanical work and foam replacement for modifications on space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank stringers,” the space agency says in a statement.
Following Discovery and Endeavor, the last space shuttle flight ever will be carried out by Atlantis, which is scheduled to launch on June 28. About 12 days later, when it returns from the ISS, the Space Shuttle Program will officially conclude, after about three decades of operations.