Author Topic: Re: STS-120 Rollout and Pad Processing Latest (Read 134435 times)

Lee Jay · « **Reply #200 on:** 10/03/2007 09:28 pm »

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Trekkie07 - 3/10/2007 3:26 PM

An amusing error on NASA STS-120 page...

Payload in Place
On Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the payload for mission STS-120 has been installed in space station Discovery's cargo bay.

Do you have a problem with promotions? :laugh:

Chandonn · « **Reply #201 on:** 10/03/2007 09:56 pm »

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Trekkie07 - 3/10/2007 5:26 PM

An amusing error on NASA STS-120 page...

Payload in Place
On Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the payload for mission STS-120 has been installed in space station Discovery's cargo bay.

Cool, despite the typo! Hope some pics of Harmony in Discovery's payload bay show up on the Kennedy Media Archive soon.

Ford Mustang · « **Reply #202 on:** 10/03/2007 10:43 pm »

I don't really see anything wrong. Discovery is.. technically.. sitting ON LC-39A.

Unless I'm missing the point?

Lee Jay · « **Reply #203 on:** 10/03/2007 10:47 pm »

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Ford Mustang - 3/10/2007 4:43 PM

I don't really see anything wrong. Discovery is.. technically.. sitting ON LC-39A.

Unless I'm missing the point?

Space station Discovery?

Ford Mustang · « **Reply #204 on:** 10/03/2007 11:06 pm »

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Lee Jay - 3/10/2007 6:47 PM

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Ford Mustang - 3/10/2007 4:43 PM

I don't really see anything wrong. Discovery is.. technically.. sitting ON LC-39A.

Unless I'm missing the point?

Space station Discovery?

Ahh.. I do see now. I don't read things fully enough to grasp what the words say. I saw 'space s------- Discovery', and figured it was shuttle. I should read more. :bleh:

Lee Jay · « **Reply #205 on:** 10/03/2007 11:44 pm »

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Ford Mustang - 3/10/2007 5:06 PM

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Lee Jay - 3/10/2007 6:47 PM

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Ford Mustang - 3/10/2007 4:43 PM

I don't really see anything wrong. Discovery is.. technically.. sitting ON LC-39A.

Unless I'm missing the point?

Space station Discovery?

Ahh.. I do see now. I don't read things fully enough to grasp what the words say. I saw 'space s------- Discovery', and figured it was shuttle. I should read more. :bleh:

I'm sure whoever let that typo slip by did the exact same thing!

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #206 on:** 10/04/2007 04:25 am »

Update by on L2 information (and there's a heck of a lot more that's recently gone into there, so it's a question of priorities with the L2 transition to article info now).

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5244 (long!)

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #207 on:** 10/04/2007 02:16 pm »

Latest L2 processing report (this morning) claims APU Hot Fire slot next Thursday, but we're waiting for more as they've only got literally hours left in the contingency flow to make Oct 23.

Standby for more.

Ford Mustang · « **Reply #208 on:** 10/04/2007 05:37 pm »

Great view of Discovery's external tank here.. Also looks like the CT has left:

Lee Jay · « **Reply #209 on:** 10/04/2007 05:51 pm »

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Chris Bergin - 4/10/2007 8:16 AM

Latest L2 processing report (this morning) claims APU Hot Fire slot next Thursday, but we're waiting for more as they've only got literally hours left in the contingency flow to make Oct 23.

I understand about trying to make the 23rd, but where along the 120 schedule does a slip start to push 122 out of the beginning of its window? It seems that that date is the real deadline for getting this mission off without an ongoing schedule delay.

psloss · « **Reply #210 on:** 10/04/2007 07:02 pm »

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Lee Jay - 4/10/2007 1:51 PM

I understand about trying to make the 23rd, but where along the 120 schedule does a slip start to push 122 out of the beginning of its window? It seems that that date is the real deadline for getting this mission off without an ongoing schedule delay.

The obvious KSC processing bottleneck that's been noted looks to be turning Pad A around. I believe Chris has reported that the current schedule for the 122 shuttle has it rolling out to the pad around November 13th or 14th, so that would be an indicator about when the pad needs to be ready and how much time there is between this launch and the rollout for the next launch.

(Looking more broadly, other parts of the shuttle program are going to be busy between flights and the station program has multiple assembly tasks in the critical path between 10A and 1E.)

ChrisGebhardt · « **Reply #211 on:** 10/05/2007 12:38 am »

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Lee Jay - 4/10/2007 1:51 PM

I understand about trying to make the 23rd, but where along the 120 schedule does a slip start to push 122 out of the beginning of its window? It seems that that date is the real deadline for getting this mission off without an ongoing schedule delay.

I believe I heard somewhere from Wayne Hale that any delay in STS-120 is probably a day-for-day slip to STS-122.

It's also important to remember that Atlantis can launch in early Januray with very little effect to the manifest. There's still a lot of give in the schedule. Also, remember that as it stands now STS-123 is scheduled for February 14, STS-124 for April 24 and then STS-125 on August 10. That's a 3.5 month gap between 124 and 125. Hence, if Atlantis' 122 mission slips to January it's not that big of a problem.

Flightstar · « **Reply #212 on:** 10/05/2007 12:53 am »

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Trekkie07 - 4/10/2007 7:38 PM

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Lee Jay - 4/10/2007 1:51 PM

I understand about trying to make the 23rd, but where along the 120 schedule does a slip start to push 122 out of the beginning of its window? It seems that that date is the real deadline for getting this mission off without an ongoing schedule delay.

I believe I heard somewhere from Wayne Hale that any delay in STS-120 is probably a day-for-day slip to STS-122.

It's also important to remember that Atlantis can launch in early Januray with very little effect to the manifest. There's still a lot of give in the schedule. Also, remember that as it stands now STS-123 is scheduled for February 14, STS-124 for April 24 and then STS-125 on August 10. That's a 3.5 month gap between 124 and 125. Hence, if Atlantis' 122 mission slips to January it's not that big of a problem.

Wasn't that in reference to the strut repair and a slip to rollout?

psloss · « **Reply #213 on:** 10/05/2007 01:26 am »

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Flightstar - 4/10/2007 8:53 PM

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Trekkie07 - 4/10/2007 7:38 PM

I believe I heard somewhere from Wayne Hale that any delay in STS-120 is probably a day-for-day slip to STS-122.

Wasn't that in reference to the strut repair and a slip to rollout?

It would depend on the timing of the quote, but I think you're right -- and in the post 118 landing timeframe they were still scheduling with only the one VAB integration cell. The critical path changed when they were able to bring VAB High Bay 3 "online" early.

ChrisGebhardt · « **Reply #214 on:** 10/05/2007 02:11 am »

Ok... like I said, I just remembered the quote from somewhere in regards to 122.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #215 on:** 10/05/2007 02:49 pm »

By the way, there was some indictions of hail at the pad, but no damage and it looks like the Hail Detection System may have made a mistake

"The hail monitoring system is being investigated. "

DaveS · « **Reply #216 on:** 10/05/2007 02:55 pm »

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Chris Bergin - 5/10/2007 4:49 PM

By the way, there was some indictions of hail at the pad, but no damage and it looks like the Hail Detection System may have made a mistake

"The hail monitoring system is being investigated. "

Speaking of that, back on Wednesday I noticed that they did a series of close-up inspections of the tank using the pad cameras:

ShuttleDiscovery · « **Reply #217 on:** 10/05/2007 03:35 pm »

New STS-120 poster on SFA:

http://sfa.nasa.gov/products.cfm

-Under the mission poster section.

nathan.moeller · « **Reply #218 on:** 10/05/2007 04:53 pm »

It really is amazing what age does to the color of the foam. It's so much darker on ET-120 than on any of the other tanks I've seen. Is it the light that does that?

DaveS · « **Reply #219 on:** 10/05/2007 05:06 pm »

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nathan.moeller - 5/10/2007 6:53 PM

It really is amazing what age does to the color of the foam. It's so much darker on ET-120 than on any of the other tanks I've seen. Is it the light that does that?

No. It's the fact that ET-120 is a fully recycled ET.

ET-120 was to be used for STS-114 but with the ECO sensor and LH2 tank diffuser problems, coupled with the fact that ET-120 was the only RTF modded tank at the time that didn't have the LOX feedline bellows heaters NASA decided to perform a very rare "stack-swap" following rollback to the VAB leading to Discovery launching with ET-121 which would have been used for STS-121.

So after the PAL ramp fiasco on STS-114 ET-120 along with ET-119 and ET-117 got sent back to Michoud for further RTF modifications prior to STS-121. At the time of STS-121, ET-120 was a mere test article with all of it's LH2 tank IFRs+4 of the LOX tank IFRs removed for foam inspections along with it's LH2 ECO sensors.

Then when it was seen that ET-120 was needed to maintain the manifest, Michoud initiated an agressive effort of restoring ET-120 to flight-status. That is why the IFRs are alot whiter than on other tanks.

That is the story of ET-120 so far. It's a bit ironic that Discovery ended up with ET-120!