Florida Today(28-06-2006)
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/NEWS02/606280371/1007/news02
Discovery countdown begins today
Crew practices landings, photographing release of
external tank
BY TODD HALVORSON
CAPE CANAVERAL - A three-day countdown to the planned launch Saturday of
shuttle Discovery is set to begin at Kennedy Space Center today while seven
astronauts take part in final training for NASA's second post-Columbia test
flight.
With the 18-story shuttle standing at launch pad 39B, mission commander Steve
Lindsey and pilot Mark Kelly will practice landings five miles away at NASA's
shuttle runway.
The dive-bombing training runs will be done in a Gulfstream 2 aircraft modified
to mimic the shuttle's steep descent during final approach -- seven times
that of a commercial airliner.
Mission specialists Mike Fossum, Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellers will
be at the pad, training to take pictures of the shuttle's redesigned external
tank once it is jettisoned from the orbiter nine minutes into flight.
Scrambling to unbuckle from their seats, Fossum and Wilson will float up
to overhead cockpit windows, rolling video and snapping still images as the
15-story fuel reservoir begins a destructive plunge back through the atmosphere.
The idea is to document the condition of the tank to help determine whether
a potentially fatal foam-shedding problem finally is under control.
All seven crewmates -- including mission specialists Lisa Nowak and Thomas
Reiter -- will check the fit of the pumpkin-orange partial pressure suits
that they'll wear during launch and atmospheric re-entry.
Equipped with an emergency oxygen system, a parachute pack, life raft and
other gear, the suits would enable the astronauts to survive a bailout into
the Atlantic Ocean if a major shuttle system fails in flight.
The astronauts were more concerned about the weekend weather when they arrived
Tuesday at KSC, disembarking from T-38 jet trainers just a few hours ahead
of afternoon thunderstorms.
"I'm hoping the weather is going to improve a little bit in the next few
days and we'll get off on time," said Sellers.
Liftoff is scheduled for 3:49 p.m. Saturday -- prime time for seasonal summer
storms.
The first official launch forecast will be issued today. But extended forecasts
from the U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing show a high probability of rain
Saturday and Sunday.
Discovery's crew nonetheless is keyed up about the launch countdown, which
will begin at 5 p.m. today.
"We're really excited to be here, ready to go do this for real," Lindsey
said. "We've been training for a long time. We're as prepared as we're going
to be."
A 102-foot-tall service structure will be pulled away from Discovery about
7 p.m. Friday, and launch engineers will begin pumping a half-million gallons
of super-cold propellant into the shuttle's tank about 5:50 a.m. Saturday.
Lindsey said that launch preparations are on schedule: "The vehicle is ready
and everything is looking 'go.' So weather permitting . . . we're going to
be airborne on July 1."