STS-124 ready for mission of discovery and hope

William Atkins
Saturday, 31 May 2008 20:48

Science - Space

NASA’s space shuttle Discovery began to be fueled up on Saturday morning, May 31, 2008, for its trip to the International Space Station, set to begin later that afternoon. It will deliver Hope ("Kibo") to the ISS.

Over one-half million gallons of fuel and oxidizer will be placed inside the external tank (ET) of the space shuttle. The ET, which weighs approximately 58,500 pounds (26,560 kilograms) empty, contains liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer when it is full.

At its launch weight, the ET weighs about 1.68 million pounds (762,100 kilograms).

At lift-off of the space shuttle, the ET supplies fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three space shuttle main engines (SSMEs) of the orbiter, in this case, Discovery. The ET is ejected from the orbiter at about ten seconds after main engine cut off (MECO)—when all of its fuel has been used. It then re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, where it is destroyed.

As of 10:40 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on Saturday, all systems are go for the mission and even the weather at Cape Canaveral seems to be cooperating for a scheduled late afternoon liftoff at 5:02:09 EDT (21:02:09 Greenwich Mean Time [GMT]).

The launch window for today’s launch at launch pad LC 39A only extends for five minutes.

The approximate thirteen-day mission is scheduled to land back at the Kennedy Space Center on June 14, 2008, at 11:14 a.m. EDT.

Onboard the Discovery is the US$1 billion Pressurized Module (PM), the second part of the Japanese Kibo laboratory. The 37-foot long module, about the size of a bus, fills the complete payload bay of the space shuttle.

At over 32,000 pounds in weight, it is the largest component ever delivered to the Space Station. In total, the Kibo laboratory costs about $2 billion.

NASA payload manager Scott Higginbotham stated, “We are on the verge of a very historic event, the launch of this amazing spacecraft, the first major manned element for the Japanese Space Agency.” [The Associated Press: “NASA begins fueling shuttle Discovery for launch”]

More information follows.