Space shuttle endeavour space shuttle3/28/2024 World's Largest Space Window Headed to Orbit.Video - How Spacewalkers Will Add Space Station's New Room.Japanese Astronaut Tweets Photos of Space Shuttle.It is one of NASA?sfive finalshuttle flights (including Endeavour?s current one) before thethree-orbiter fleet is retired this fall.Ĭain said shuttle managers will wait to see if the coldsnap in Florida breaks next week before deciding what impact Discovery?sdelayed move, if any, will have on its upcoming launch date. Whentemperatures drop to around 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 degrees Celsius) theseals on a shuttle?s thrusters can leak, among other issues, Cain said.ĭiscovery is slated to launch a cargo pod filled withsupplies and equipment to the space station on March 18. Meanwhile, engineers back on Earth have delayed plans tomove Endeavour?s sister ship Discovery to NASA?s cavernous Vehicle AssemblyBuilding in Florida to be attached to its external fuel tank and rocketboosters.įrigid temperatures will keep that shuttle in itsmaintenance hangar at the Kennedy Space Center until at least Monday. He may replace the small parts or use a different suitentirely, but only after the power harness on that spare can be repaired,mission managers said. ![]() The spacesuit glitch, the second for Endeavour?s two-man spacewalkingteam, will require astronaut Nicholas Patrick to fix a malfunctioning faninside his suit. They?re arrival has brought the$100 billion space station up to 98 percent complete, but three spacewalks are requiredto fully install them. The two additions cost nearly $409 million and were builtin Italy for NASA by the European Space Agency. ?Those windows are closed tight and covered by protective shutters, butwill be opened next week once the observation dome is moved to its final,Earth-facing location. Tranquility was delivered with a seven-window observationdeck that includes a huge round central window that is the largest ever sent tospace. They will have to use hand-held flashlights since the module?s mainsystems aren?t online. The astronauts are expected to open Tranquility?s doorand move a bulky bench press-like exercise machine inside as one of their maintasks. Great to have everybody on board!? station commander Jeffrey Williamswrote in a Twitter update. ?Today we ingress the new module and get it up andrunning. That grand opening is slated to take place tonight at9:14 p.m. The plumbing lines for its main cooling system haven?tbeen hooked up yet, so astronauts can?t switch on all of its systems.īut they can open the hatch to the module and beginoutfitting it for use on the space station. The module is nearly 24 feet (7 meters) long and aboutthe size of a small bus. The newspace room, called Tranquility in honor of the Apollo 11 landing site, wasattached to the station during an overnight spacewalk that began late Thursday. With Endeavour?s heat shield in the clear, all 11astronauts aboard the linked shuttleand space station can focus on opening the orbiting laboratory?s brand-new roomand fixing a finicky spacesuit fan for a late Saturday spacewalk. ![]() A final, standard inspection of Endeavour?s heat shield willbe conducted by shuttle astronauts once the orbiter leaves the station nextweek. NASA has kept a close watch on shuttle heat shield healthsince a piece of debris led to the destruction of shuttle Columbia duringre-entry in 2003.
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