Endeavour remains on track for launch on Monday, as she hit the start of her S0007 Launch Countdown operation on time at 7am Friday morning. No issues are being worked on the vehicle, although a meeting on Thursday confirmed a decision not to reopen the Payload Bay in order to help the STP-H3 VADER experiment, [...]
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Endeavour is on track to head back into Launch Countdown (S0007) operations on Friday, as her engineers complete tasks associated with reconnecting the ordnance to the stack and closeouts. All retests on the Aft Load Controller Assembly (ALCA-2) are complete and nominal, with a potential lead on the root cause of the April 29 launch [...]
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Kennedy Space Center (KSC) engineering teams have realigned processing targets for STS-135 to point towards a July 12 launch date. The preliminary target is dependant on numerous – and upcoming – factors, not least the need for Endeavour to launch on her re-planned May 16 date, but also a nominal pad turnaround and a smooth [...]
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NASA HQ appear to be closing in on a decision to combine the second and third of three planned Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration flights (C2 and C3) of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Internal schedules, presentations and memos are continuing to point towards a working plan for a preliminary November 30 launch date for the [...]
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The United Launch Alliance (ULA) have successfully made a second attempt to launch their Atlas V 401 – from Cape Canaveral on Saturday at 2:10pm EDT – following several failed attempts to find a gap in unacceptable weather during the 40 minute launch window on Friday – resulting in a 24 hour scrub turnaround. The [...]
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Endeavour’s final mission is now tracking a No Earlier Than (NET) May 16 launch date, following a Program level meeting to evaluate the schedule for the troubleshooting work on the orbiter’s Auxiliary Power Unit (APU-1) heater system. Work has – and continues to – focus on the Aft Load Controller Assembly (ALCA-2), while additional work [...]
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Teams at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, FL have completed operations to install a replacement Aft Load Controller Assembly (ALCA) into one of Endeavour’s aft avionics bays. Meanwhile, the ALCA that failed during the April 29th launch attempt for Endeavour is undergoing testing to isolate the cause of the failure and enable [...]
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A Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat rocket has launched a communications satellite for the Russian military. The rocket, carrying the fourth Meridian spacecraft, lifted off from pad 43/4 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, at 17:41:33 UTC on Wednesday. Spacecraft separation was successfully carried out at 19:59 UTC.
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With schedules continuing to be refined based on Endeavour’s troubleshooting efforts, Kennedy Space Center (KSC) teams were told on Tuesday that Atlantis’ rollover is being moved to a May 16 placeholder, while the launch date – which continues to target June 28 – may slip to July 4, based on a shortage of contingency days. [...]
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NASA managers have internally refined Endeavour’s troubleshooting schedule on Monday, placing STS-134 on a NET (No Earlier Than) launch date of May 10. The schedule continues to be provisional, as engineers press on with the complex work of replacing the Aft “Load Control Assembly” (ALCA-2) – the likely cause of the APU 1 heater failure [...]
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Endeavour’s critical – and final – mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed until at least May 8, following an engineering evaluation into her Auxiliary Power Unit 1 (APU-1), which suffered from a heater problem, breaking Launch Commit Criteria rules. The investigation found the root cause relates to a hybrid driver inside [...]
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