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#140 by Chris Bergin on 27 Aug, 2006 16:05
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Monday officially ruled out.
And yes, rollback would kill the window.
Maybe the Russians can help and delay Soyuz? -
#141 by psloss on 27 Aug, 2006 16:09
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Chris Bergin - 27/8/2006 11:52 AM
It'd probably be better from a shuttle scheduling standpoint to launch and do the handover now -- although the issue with the Soyuz launch was where it puts the Exp. 13 return; not sure a hypothetical handover now would allow for a daylight Soyuz landing and recovery.
Monday officially ruled out.
And yes, rollback would kill the window.
Maybe the Russians can help and delay Soyuz?
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#142 by NASA_Twix_JSC on 27 Aug, 2006 16:10
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It's not looking good folks, sorry.
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#143 by shuttlefan on 27 Aug, 2006 16:10
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Seems as though the Russians are always quite firm in their launch plans, or would they be flexible?
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#144 by punkboi on 27 Aug, 2006 16:10
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psloss - 27/8/2006 8:51 AM
Quotepunkboi - 27/8/2006 11:46 AM By window, do you mean Tuesday's launch attempt?
Probably the daylight/before Soyuz window -- that closes on September 7th and they'd have probably a week of work after getting back out to the pad. It could take a little while for the weather to improve after the storm passes...Oops... By rollback I thought you were talking about the RSS being rolled back. And I figured you were talking about the whole launch window.
...
Damn you, Mother Nature.
QuoteChris Bergin - 27/8/2006 8:52 AM Monday officially ruled out. And yes, rollback would kill the window. Maybe the Russians can help and delay Soyuz?
What, and delay the first female space tourist from lifting off into space? Probably not.
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#145 by DaveS on 27 Aug, 2006 16:12
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According to FLA Today, NASA plans 2 pm launch status update. It will of course air live on NASA TV.
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#146 by strut on 27 Aug, 2006 16:14
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In the Broadcast community there are 2 ways of dealing with lightning, the first is to take the strike to a lightning rod, that conducts the energy to ground, the second is lightning dissipatoin. The dissipation method places something that looks like a chimney sweep brush at the highest point and it hopefully absorbs the energy and conducts it to ground before a strike ever happens. The lightning rod is (hopefully) a direct connection to ground to channel the strike to ground. Wiki has a pretty good description of these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod The general belief at a broadcast site is that the tower provides you a cone of potection from the top of the tower, that's great, but I've also seen ball lightning come in off the power line, under the cone and go to ground about 5 feet from where I was standing.
Looks like maybe I'll be going home without seeing it fly this trip, I'd rather have it safe than deal with the consequences. -
#147 by psloss on 27 Aug, 2006 16:19
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Here's recent set of storm track model runs; reference:
http://www.sfwmd.gov/org/omd/ops/weather/plots/storm_05.gif
Via:
https://www.patrick.af.mil/45OG/45ws/hurricane.htm
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#148 by mkirk on 27 Aug, 2006 16:20
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Let me add a little fuel to the speculation fires:
Unless the Hurricane forecast changes tonight for the good (i.e. a sudden jog to the west) then even Tuesday is not going to happen. They can’t get in a launch configuration, have a Tuesday scrub, and then roll back in time to avoid the wind concerns at the Cape.
My opinion is we are done until October unfortunately. Even if the Russians can give us a couple extra days it is still not enough time to roll back to the Pad this weekend or early next week and then get plugged back in and configured for another Countdown.
Mark Kirkman
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#149 by psloss on 27 Aug, 2006 16:24
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mkirk - 27/8/2006 12:07 PM
Do you (or anyone) know what's the deadline for a rollback decision given the current vehicle configuration and Ernesto forecast? Do they have to decide today?
My opinion is we are done until October unfortunately. Even if the Russians can give us a couple extra days it is still not enough time to roll back to the Pad this weekend or early next week and then get plugged back in and configured for another Countdown.
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#150 by Chris Bergin on 27 Aug, 2006 16:25
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mkirk - 27/8/2006 5:07 PM
Let me add a little fuel to the speculation fires:
Unless the Hurricane forecast changes tonight for the good (i.e. a sudden jog to the west) then even Tuesday is not going to happen. They can’t get in a launch configuration, have a Tuesday scrub, and then roll back in time to avoid the wind concerns at the Cape.
My opinion is we are done until October unfortunately. Even if the Russians can give us a couple extra days it is still not enough time to roll back to the Pad this weekend or early next week and then get plugged back in and configured for another Countdown.
Mark Kirkman
Thanks Mark.
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#151 by DaveS on 27 Aug, 2006 16:26
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mkirk - 27/8/2006 6:07 PM
My opinion are the same.
My opinion is we are done until October unfortunately. Even if the Russians can give us a couple extra days it is still not enough time to roll back to the Pad this weekend or early next week and then get plugged back in and configured for another Countdown. -
#152 by Shuttle Man on 27 Aug, 2006 16:27
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psloss - 27/8/2006 11:11 AM
Quotemkirk - 27/8/2006 12:07 PM
Do you (or anyone) know what's the deadline for a rollback decision given the current vehicle configuration and Ernesto forecast? Do they have to decide today?
My opinion is we are done until October unfortunately. Even if the Russians can give us a couple extra days it is still not enough time to roll back to the Pad this weekend or early next week and then get plugged back in and configured for another Countdown.
Given the speed of this storm, I would expect the decision to be made today. I know a lot of the troops have been placed on standby for a rollback at midnight. -
#153 by punkboi on 27 Aug, 2006 16:30
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I wonder if Brent Jett and Co. are cursing up a storm (no pun intended) at the crew quarters right now
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#154 by Avron on 27 Aug, 2006 16:38
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Well, it looks like all pointers are looking at a rollback... I just don't see the risk been taken to hang around for Tuesday, when the stack/pad is not ready in terms of tests... ok, what the window in October?
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#155 by DaveS on 27 Aug, 2006 16:39
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Avron - 27/8/2006 6:25 PM
2 days, in mid(?)-October.
Well, it looks like all pointers are looking at a rollback... I just don't see the risk been taken to hang around for Tuesday, when the stack/pad is not ready in terms of tests... ok, what the window in October? -
#156 by psloss on 27 Aug, 2006 16:43
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Late October, at least as of the last FAWG chart I saw -- it's bracketed by the lighted ET umbilical well photography that "opens" on October 26th; on the other side, there's a beta angle cutout that begins on October 29th.
If they're going down this road, I'd expect the program to "work" the ET umbilical photo lighting as they did with this window. The daylight launch window opens on October 20th.
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#157 by astrobrian on 27 Aug, 2006 16:48
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Unless they issue a waiver for the self imposed lighting conditions, then it opens up a bit. Would they do that given the circumstances?
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#158 by GioFX on 27 Aug, 2006 16:55
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me thinkin NASA will lessening the ET's lighting LCC to maximize the launch window.
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#159 by shuttlefan on 27 Aug, 2006 17:02
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Is it at all possible that NASA will just conclude that they have enough positive data from STS-121 to just up and do away with the daylight launch constraint in order to expand the STS-115 launch options?
