STS-127 to launch today

Great news. STS-127 mission to the International space station will launch at 7:17 AM EDT.

Space shuttle Endeavour is in place at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, undergoing final preparations for its upcoming 16-day mission to the International Space Station. Mission STS-127 is the 32nd flight dedicated to station construction, and the final of a series of three flights dedicated to the assembly of the Japanese Kibo laboratory complex.The STS-127 payload is the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility and Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section.

Flight information-

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Launch Target:
7:17 a.m. EDT – June 13, 2009
Orbiter:
Endeavour
Mission Number:
STS-127
(127th space shuttle flight)
Launch Window:
10 minutes
Launch Pad:
39A
Mission Duration:
16 days
Landing Site:
KSC
Inclination/Altitude:
51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles
Primary Payload:
29th station flight (2J/A), Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility (JEM EF), Kibo Japanese Experiment Logistics Module - Exposed Section (ELM-ES)

The crew members are,

Commander-

Mark Polansky

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Pilot-

Doughlas Hurley

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Mission specialists-

David Wolf

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Christopher Cassidy

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Julie Payette

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Thomas Marshburn

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Mission Specialists/ISS Flight Engineers-

Timothy Kopra

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Koichi Wakata

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Mark L. Polansky will command the shuttle Endeavour for STS-127. Douglas G. Hurley will serve as the pilot. Mission specialists are Christopher J. Cassidy, Thomas H. Marshburn, David A. Wolf and Julie Payette, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut.

The mission will deliver Timothy L. Kopra to the station as a flight engineer and science officer and return Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata to Earth. Hurley, Cassidy, Marshburn and Kopra will be making their first trips to space.

Endeavour sets sail on its 23rd mission with the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility and Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section. The facility will provide a type of "front porch" for experiments in the exposed environment, and a robotic arm that will be attached to the Kibo Pressurized Module and used to position experiments outside the station. The mission will include five spacewalks.

STS-127 is the 29th shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

STS-127

Commander Mark polansky will be tweeting from space. It can be followed at,
Twitter

Shuttle main page

It can also be seen live on NASA TV.
NASA TV

Update-

Launch has been postponed.

A gaseous hydrogen leak on a vent line for space shuttle Endeavour is postponing this morning's launch. The official scrub time was 12:26 a.m. EDT. Launch teams began draining Endeavour's external fuel tank of its liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen at 12:06 a.m. Fueling was halted after the leak was detected near the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, which attached to the external tank at its intertank area. The line leads from the GUCP back to the launch pad and to the "flare stack" where vented gaseous hydrogen is burned off. The leak is similar to what happened during the first launch attempt of space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission in March. After the leak is assessed, shuttle managers plan to meet Saturday morning to discuss what steps to take next, including targeting a new launch date for Endeavour's STS-127 mission to the International Space Station.

Shuttle home

It is also posted on Polansky's twitter page.

Great post but what's up with the leak? Interesting how this has happened before.

Thanks for posting this - not too many people get excited about a launch anymore, sometimes you don't even hear about them on the news.

reply to post by gravitybender


I am not much of an expert on space shuttles. But these are the fuel lines that take the hydrogen fuel from the external tank to the main engines. And these are prone to leaks. So, if there is a loss of fuel, the engines will shut down early, but the computers onboard wont allow for shut down and the result is that the engines would run without fuel at full throttle causing an explosion.

I recollect this from a live video during STS-119.

Take a read about the hydrogen fuel leak which occurred during STS-119

Excellent! Thank you. I see now - not that I was going to throw any spin on that leak thing whatsoever.

However I have to say it's too bad the public does not show much enthusiasm with space launches like they used to.

reply to post by gravitybender


Agree with your. Low Earth Orbit is one of the beautiful places to be. The view of the earth will truly amazing.

Take a look at this NASA page which contains HD videos. The first video shows the,

Experience Zero-G in HD, through the eyes of space station Expedition 13 astronauts Jeff Williams and Pavel Vinogradov

and it has some views during STS-ii5 mission, and they are awesome, this is recommended view. The space walking astronauts are really lucky.

Shuttle launch has been postponed by 96 hours and the will launch on 17th. However there is a conflict with the LRO/LCROSS mission.

The earliest the shuttle could be ready for liftoff is June 17, however there is a range conflict on that date with the scheduled launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

Source-
NASA


But if it cannot launch by 20th,

NASA managers will discuss range options and if Endeavour is not able to launch by June 20, the next window opens on July 11.

Source-
Space and Astronautics

STS-127 launches today the 17th of June.

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center, launch managers met to discuss filling space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tank in preparation for the STS-127 launch scheduled for 5:40 a.m. tomorrow. Due to current weather conditions, fueling will not begin as scheduled at 8:15 p.m. There is currently a 40 percent chance of weather prohibiting tanking as a result of anvil clouds and lightening in the area. Managers will continue to monitor weather conditions. Teams can begin tanking as late as 10 p.m. without impacting tomorrow's launch attempt.

Shuttle home

reply to post by peacejet


Leaked again! I was out there to view it the first time, but couldn't stick around for the opportunity this morning. FYI, the leak is in the hydrogen venting line, where hydrogen that has boiled off inside the tank while waiting for launch is routed away from the launch pad to be safely burned off. Even though the tank provides insulation the cryogenic fuel is constantly boiling off anyway and needs to be safely disposed of as it does so. If a leak of hydrogen gas occurs on the pad itself it presents a huge risk of fire and explosion to the workers and astronauts, not to mention what would happen if you should actually try to start the shuttle with it surrounded by excess hydrogen... This is why fueling is done hours before any workers come out to the pad.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by ngchunter]

I'm not sure I buy this "leak" idea...

NASA has also been fudging sunspot numbers (inflating them..) and since I've learned this, I view the organization suspiciously..

What's up with the lack of magnetogram images too?

Originally posted by brokenheadphonez
I'm not sure I buy this "leak" idea...

Why not? What is it if it isn't a fueling leak? The only thing occuring at the times the leaks are discovered is fueling of the external tank.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by ngchunter]

reply to post by ngchunter

• Mars probe reboot due to "cosmic ray buildup".
  
• DOD cut off NASA's access to Earth facing satellite that detect GRB and nuclear explosions.
  
• A weird spike in electron density on 2009-06-01 (peak of 40p/cc from 13h00 to 16h30 from ACE with no corresponding temperature data. (Isn't that physically impossible? Or was the data corrupted? I don't remember significant solar activity on that day that seemed unusual, but I will go back and check the data.. (Right around the time of the AF447 crash too..)
  
• There has been a recent increase (mild) in solar activity over the past week (is Sol waking up?).
  
• NASA has been inflating sunspot numbers
  

PURE SPECULATION:

Maybe they don't want to send them up (they've been running STS missions non stop before they decommission them) because of some external factor, a GRB or possible nuclear detonation perhaps.

I can't imagine NASA issuing a press release along the lines of "Oh yeah, about that shuttle launch, I'm actually feeling really tired and have a headache, can I have a raincheck?"

A hydrogen leak is fairly mundane but dangerous enough to scrub the mission. It just seems like a good way out.

(EDIT to include: I wouldn't want to jeopardize the safety of the best of the best nor all of that really important equipment personally...)

[edit on 17-6-2009 by brokenheadphonez]

Originally posted by brokenheadphonez
PURE SPECULATION:

Maybe they don't want to send them up (they've been running STS missions non stop before they decommission them) because of some external factor, a GRB or possible nuclear detonation perhaps.

GRBs happen all the time (not that the spy sats you mentioned have ever been used to detect GRBs - they were for meteors that already hit atmo), and I don't see how a nuclear detonation would hurt them shy of it detonating in space. Meanwhile, there's a crew of 6 on ISS right now, so if they're expecting problems why haven't they done anything to protect them? In fact, they performed a long spacewalk the week before the first launch attempt.

[edit on 17-6-2009 by ngchunter]

reply to post by ngchunter


I just wanted to try on a tin foil hat for size. I really doubt this is the case, I just wanted to get a little imaginative. I haven't been exercising my imagination very hard lately.

Thanks for setting the record straight regarding the birds.

It would be really interesting if you could explain the inflated sunspot numbers, though..

Mod Note: Please stay on Topic – Review This Link.

[edit on Sun Jun 21 2009 by Jbird]

Originally posted by brokenheadphonez
It would be really interesting if you could explain the inflated sunspot numbers, though..

If they're artificially inflating the numbers (which I don't believe is something they would intentionally do), that would mean the true risk to the shuttle would be lower, not higher.