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Shuttle Endeavour launches tonight.

Aurian said:
My god.. how hard can it be to get a freaking lift-off?
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Not very if you don't mind risking the shuttle stack breaking up during ascent or getting struck by lightning. They have to be careful, the shuttle is a little bit fragile, has a crew, and they only have limited launch windows. Not all launch systems are as badly put out by weather, e.g Saturn V IIRC.
 
orange2.jpg

Final Inspection Team wears orange coveralls

TheCloseoutCrewaredressedinwhitecov.jpg

The Closeout Crew are dressed in white coveralls


SuitSpecialistswear.jpg

But what would you call the colour the Suit Specialists wear?​





T-3 hours and counting

Crew departs for the launch pad and, upon arriving at the pad, begins entry into the orbiter via the White Room
  1. Complete close-out preparations in the launch pad's White Room
  2. Check cockpit switch configurations
  3. Astronauts perform air-to-ground voice checks with Launch Control (Kennedy Space Center) and Mission Control (Johnson Space Center)
  4. Close the orbiter's crew hatch and check for leaks
  5. Complete White Room close-out
  6. Close-out crew retreats to fallback area
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Are we getting ready to watch The NASA show again?

Or do you perhaps suspect it might have a different ending this time?

rain.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looking good :bolian:


Launch Blogger Steven Siceloff said:
After a day of rain, the weather has cooperated with STS-127 and forecasters predict a better than 90 percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time.
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T-9 minutes and counting

  • Start automatic ground launch sequencer
  • Retract orbiter access arm (T-7 minutes, 30 seconds)
  • Start auxiliary power units (T-5 minutes, 0 seconds)
  • Arm solid rocket booster range safety safe and arm devices (T-5 minutes, 0 seconds)
  • Start orbiter aerosurface profile test, followed by main engine gimbal profile test (T-3 minutes, 55 seconds)
  • Retract gaseous oxygen vent arm, or "beanie cap" (T-2 minutes, 55 seconds)
  • Crew members close and lock their visors (T-2 minutes, 0 seconds)
  • Orbiter transfers from ground to internal power (T-50 seconds)
  • Ground launch sequencer is go for auto sequence start (T-31 seconds)
  • Activate launch pad sound suppression system (T-16 seconds)
  • Activate main engine hydrogen burnoff system (T-10 seconds)
  • Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds)
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Just watched it go up. Sadly no sound (it hasn't been working on my work machine for quite a while), but still pretty cool.
 
Candlelight said:
What? Did they damage it again???
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Yup, around the time of SRB separation debris from the tank seems to have damaged somes tiles on the underside of the shuttle. This has happened before though, and it doesn't look like it hit the wing leading edge, so hopefully it won't be a problem.
 
That's a pretty quick prognosis. I hope they plan to take a closer look.

Anyway, Go, Endeavour! :bolian:
 
I heard on the news that they lost pieces of it during the launch.. I was going "Uh-Oh.. that does not sound good.." But glad to see that it wasn't a big deal.
 
^^ It doesn't seem to be up right now.

Still no problems reported with the heat shield, but they're still analyzing data.
 
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