NASA SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH ENDEAVOR INSTALL

NASA SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH ENDEAVOR INSTALL

Mark Kelly, will install a $1.5 billion physics experiment on the outside of the station. 'We can declare that a victory,' says Peter Nickolenko, the assistant launch director for the mission.ĭuring Endeavour's 16-day stay at the space station, the orbiter's crew, commanded by US Navy Capt. They made the necessary repairs, and the heater performed as advertised. Technicians traced the problem to an electrical switch box in the orbiter's aft section. The troublesome component was a heater designed to keep the fuel lines to one of the units from freezing while the shuttle is on orbit. The auxiliary power units run the hydraulic systems that operate landing gear, flight-control-surfaces on the wings and tail, and the gimbals that swivel the shuttle's main engines to provided steering during ascent. But the launch team scrubbed the liftoff during the final countdown because a key component related to one of the orbiter's auxiliary power units was misbehaving. Heater problem fixedĮndeavour originally was slated to begin its trip to the International Space Station on April 29. The launch team has rules it must follow regarding permissible launch weather, but those rule don't cover 'how long you can watch before the launch goes out of sight,' he quipped during a post-launch new conference. But 'we apologize that the view wasn't the best.' 'It was a fantastic launch,' said Michael Moses, who headed the prelaunch mission management team. Roughly 12 seconds after the engines ignited, the orbiter vanished into a low-hanging layer of clouds, visible beyond that point only to tracking cameras on the ground at a cloud-free site north of the launch pad, and to an aircraft operated by range-safety officers with the US Air Force. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona, whose husband is commanding the mission and who is recovering from a gunshot wound received in during a January shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., Endeavour's liftoff was as close to a 'blink and you'll miss it' launch as they come. When wheels touch the runway again on June 1, the orbiter will have logged more than 115 million miles in space.Ītlantis, the final orbiter remaining, is expected to make its final NASA shuttle launch in July.įor spectators, including US Rep. The Endeavour flight marks the 25th and final voyage for the shuttle, the youngest shuttle in what once was a four-orbiter fleet. After a 17-day delay, the space shuttle Endeavour and its six-member crew arced into the sky Monday morning on a 16-day mission to the International Space Station.

Nasa space shuttle launch endeavor