14 DAY TRIAL // After injuring himself in a bicycle accident on January 15, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra is apparently in a worse enough condition to prompt officials at the American space agency to replace him as one of the six astronauts to fly the STS-133 mission.
Kopra was one of the astronauts that were supposed to take the space shuttle Discovery on its last journey to the International Space Station (ISS), in a resupply flight meant to deliver space parts, experiments, a permanent cargo container and an innovative robot.
At this point, the orbiter is due to launch on February 24, less than 6 weeks away. While there are currently no guarantees that this will actually happen in the allotted time frame, it is NASA procedure to replace space flyers who exhibit disabilities in performing their duties.
The decision was not taken lightly for several reasons, the most important of which being that the type of training needed for flying on the shuttle, and also for performing extravehicular activities on the ISS, takes months, or even years, to complete.
The astronaut was to be one of the two STS-133 crew members to carry out a spacewalk after Discovery docked to the ISS, but now a veteran spacewalker was assigned to fill that position. Kopra apparently suffers from a broken hip, so there is no question of him resuming his duties anytime soon.
“Tim is doing fine and expects a full recovery; however, he will not be able to support the launch window next month,” said in a statement yesterday, January 20, Peggy Whitson.
“If for some unanticipated reason STS-133 slips significantly, it is possible that Tim could rejoin the crew,” adds the NASA official, who is the chief of the Astronaut Office at the agency's Johnson Space Center (JSC), in Houston, Texas.
Other representatives at NASA say that this replacement should theoretically not affect the shuttle's launch schedule anymore than other technical issues have.
“This is a unique situation for us. I think we've got good plans in place. The teams have done a tremendous job of getting prepared,” added the NASA space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier.
He explained to reporters yesterday that veteran astronaut and spacewalker Steve Bowen, who participated in five EVA and two spaceflights thus far, will be Kopra's replacement for STS-133.
Discovery's launch has already been delayed significantly, prompting a rework of NASA's shuttle launch manifest for 2011. The orbiter was supposed to take off in early November, but a variety of issues have delayed its take-off considerably ever since.
Shuttle Endeavor is now scheduled to launch in April instead of February, while a clear launch data for Atlantis' last mission to the ISS has not yet been set, Space reports.