William Atkins
Thursday, 26 February 2009 20:07
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
NASA mission managers have announced that the STS-119 trip to the International Space Station is now 'targeted' for a lift-off on March 12, 2009. Engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are still troubleshooting a problem with the Flow Control Valves (FCVs), which may further delay the flight.
The mission has been delayed six times so far: November 6, December 4, in 2008, and February 12, February 19, February 22, and February 27, 2009. [SpaceFlightNow.com: “
Worldwide Launch Schedule”]
For additional information on the latest delays, check out the February 22, 2009
iTWire article "
More valve concerns: NASA's STS-119 delayed further."
The launch window for the space shuttle Discovery mission, STS-119, ends on March 13, and does not pick up again until early in April 2009.
The lift-off time is now tentatively scheduled for 8:54 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), 0054 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on March 12th.
This launch window is partially directed by a crew rotation at the Space Station, which is now scheduled for March 26, 2009. On that date, a Russian
Soyuz rocket will launch the Soyuz
TMA-14 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) to the International Space Station (ISS) with two members of the ISS Expedition 19 crew.
STS-119 will be the 28th U.S. mission to the International Space Station. The Discovery crew will deliver the Starboard 6 truss segment, which provides the fourth (and final) set of power-generating solar arrays.
This final set of solar arrays will allow the crew size to increase from three to six.
Page two talks about the tentative nature of the March 12th launch date, along with the dangers if one of the valves cracks during ascent into space.
