Hey guys and gals remember when Discovery Launched its RTF2 flight and the ground rules changed saying that if they saw tile damage that was potentially vehicle destructive, they would hang out at the ISS until the Emergency rescue Shuttle (Atlantis) launched to meet up with ISS and bring back the crew safely. Well under these current circumstances they would likely have launched with the AC motor phase issue and possibly an LH2 ECO sensor issue as well. Since Atlantis would have had an empty payload bay they could've launched within LCC rules but what about the ECO issue? Did they ever change the LCC from 4 of 4 to 3 of 4? Otherwise I'd like to see that waiver! I am quite confident Atlantis would have flown ASAP with these nit picky problems to save a crew. But now that Discovery is safely home and Atlantis is loaded down with 17+ tons of ISS hardware, critical Milestone making ISS hardware they will not take any chances. The ECO Sensor (Point Sensor) electronics box is located in the Shuttles Aft Fuselage in an easily accessible area called AV Bay5 or Avionics Bay 5. Still the RSS has to be rotated; ET inerted and pulse purged for safety reasons and some, not all, Aft Platforms installed to give access to the Pt. Sensor Box. What then? I guess change out the box, I've done it with Techs myself and it is pretty easy. The hard part is getting a good box and hoping it's the box and not the sensors themselves. At the same time I guess they could go into the Payload Bay to look at the small motor and its electrical connections. I really did not hear much on the Fuel Cell issue if it just "went away" then that's one of those UAs (Unexplained Anomalies) that are hard to write and justify flying with, but there are plenty of UAs over the history of the Shuttle Program. Sadly 2/5ths of all waivers and UAs went away with the destruction of Challenger and Columbia. My bet is we do launch tomorrow unless of course something "NEW" raises its ugly head we weren't expecting, but now that Atlantis has had Cryos pumped into her she is not so shy and she wants to FLY!
If you review the press conference from today, you'll see that LCC is still 4 of 4 but Wayne wants to change that in the future.
So what is the new plan then for the sensor problem?
There is no new plan, the one being discussed in the scrub thread is the one still in effect.
MarkD - 8/9/2006 9:38 PM
So what is the new plan then for the sensor problem?
Plan is this:
LH2 ECO sensor#3 fails wet: Launch
All ECO sensors works: Launch
LH2 ECO sensor#3 fails dry: Scrub
Any other ECO sensor failure: Scrub
DaveS - 8/9/2006 3:43 PM
Plan is this:
LH2 ECO sensor#3 fails wet: Launch
All ECO sensors works: Launch
LH2 ECO sensor#3 fails dry: Scrub
Any other ECO sensor failure: Scrub
Aw, come on, Dave. Here I am trying to get more people read
the article Chris wrote back in June and you go and explain it in four lines so nobody has to.
