Hotmail
Messenger
My MSN
MSN Directory
SUBSCRIBE |
The following are the MSNBC blogs: Bloggermann, Hardblogger, Cosby Connection, Regular Joe, Untied, Test Pattern, and Cosmic Log. (What's RSS?) |
WEBLOGS |
More blogs from MSNBC.com |
• August 9, 2005 | 4:40 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: Return to earth
2:12 p.m. Landing + 6 Hours
Aloft and above the clouds well west of the continental divide and looking down from a bare fraction of the height Discovery’s crew experienced and enjoyed.
If this is some sensation and it always is that must be SOME sensation.
For Discovery safe landing. For the shuttle program a bumpy ride to that landing.
So let the argument begin. Did NASA revalidate itself and its program with this mission or did it just avoid a fatal bullet with much proving left to do?
For this old space program watcher/reporter/fanatic, I have to come down on the side of both. Had this mission ended, as they say, badly, it is more than just safe to conclude the shuttle program would have disappeared into contentious oblivion. That it ended well just means that for every mission still to come before the program sunsets in 2010, the Space Agency will have to collectively hold its breath as we have with it for the past 14 days.
|
It is L + 6 Hours and this blog has come to “full stop” along with Discovery and her crew of seven.
Time to kiss the horses.
Touchdown. Wheels stop. So damned sweet
Discovery's delayed landing is complete. My delayed plane is boarding.
Final thoughts to close this blog out, if you care, when I touch down 300 or so miles from where Discovery has just rolled to a stop.
They can kiss the horses now and the ground if they choose in not too many minutes more.
• August 9, 2005 | 8:06 a.m. ET
L - 5 minutes
There she is. A single white dot in the shaky distance. Not the rain of fiery parts we saw two-and-half years ago.
It is Touchdown - 6 minutes and breathing can resume.
• August 9, 2005 | 7:58 a.m. ET
L - 13 minutes.
Past peak heating. Past when crisis and disaster happen for Columbia. All is well we think but still no word from Mission Control that we hear at this viewing point.
Wait. There it is. Loud and clear -- "Discovery copies..." Commander Eileen Collins. Cool and calm. Sounding like she is coming back from a drive in the country.
Now all they need to get to is "wheels stop" and they get to kiss the horse.
It is L - 9 minutes now and most of the hard part is over.
• August 9, 2005 | 7:53 a.m. ET
L - 18 minutes
If it is going to go bad for Discovery it is going to happen now. Peak heating is starting and so far Mission Control is silent.
It is L - 17 minutes and this is as tough to take as every re-entry I can remember going back to John Glenn's first in 1962.
• August 9, 2005 |7:42 a.m. ET
L - 29 minutes
She's beginning to settle into the upper wisps of atmosphere now. This is the point when Columbia began to get into trouble.
What IS going on up there?
It is L - 29 minutes and painfully only time WILL tell.
• August 9, 2005 | 7:26 a.m. ET
L - 45 minutes
On the way in and so far so good. I guess.
I guess because a competing network -- the one that will remain nameless but has TV in all the airports -- is doing business as usual.
No tracking map. No ears-to-the-speakers attempt to hear air-to-ground transmission to get the sense that all really is well.
Not to pick on the other guys, but is this the way to cover what might be life-and-death derring-do?
It is L- 43 minutes and I wonder.
L - 71 Minutes (If all Goes Well)
How perverse. Sitting in the Admiral’s Club at JFK waiting for a delayed flight cross country and keeping track of the delayed landing of Discovery. Also across country.
It’s fitting. There has been a Peril’s of Pauline aura to this mission from what NASA calls the get go. Just like the movie theater serials we watched every Saturday afternoon.
There was the hero at the end of the half hour. Tied to the tracks. The smoke belching locomotive bearing down. Surely he would die. And lo the following Saturday, miracles happened and he lived for another 30 minutes until the next cliff hanger. It went on week after week until the end when the hero lived, won the girl and kissed the horse. Or in some cases the other way around.
And that has been Discovery from delayed launch to delayed landing. Was this tile the fatal flaw? Was that handing filler the fatal flaw? What WOULD happen next? And it all turned out just fine, so far.
In 70 minutes or so we learn whether these heroes get to kiss the horse and come back to fight another day. Fingers crossed.
It is L -65 minutes now. And counting. And worrying.
• August 8, 2005 | 12:25 p.m. ET
L- 1 Earthbound thoughts.
Through all of this there was this to deal with. The word that a friend and colleague of more that three decades is dead. The cancer he was diagnosed with four months ago had taken his life just before midnight last night. Peter Jennings. Gone. It does not compute.
We covered the Challenger disaster together when America learned for the first time that space flight and "risky business' were one in the same. He sat in the chair for six long hours that awful January day being what an anchorman had to be. Steady. Calming. The presence a nation needed at a time of great national pain. He was that day what I remember Walter Cronkite being through that awful day so many years before when Jack Kennedy was shot. He was a voice of calm and reason when all around was unreasonable and unthinkable.
He was, quite simply, one of those consummate broadcasters whose ear you could whisper while he was on the air and have a conversation about the story he was broadcasting; to whom you could give directions the same way; and with whom you could reach broadcaster-producer consensus on where to go and what to do next and all the time the viewer never knew. Steady? He epitomized it as do and did all the great ones.
Peter would have hated this overnight coverage of Discovery, a story turning into non-story for yet another day. "Come on chap," he would have said, "can't we get this over?"
For Peter, it is now over. And we are the poorer for it.
It is L-1 and it is not a very good day. At all.
L-One hour 43 Minutes.
Not so fast. Again. That "unstable situation" at the Kennedy Space Center landing strip just won't go away and so the Discovery Seven have just been given not one more hour but one more whole day up there. Back to L-1 and we and they get to do it all over again. What will they do up there for the unscheduled 24 hours? Take pictures. Look down a lot and with Mission Control pretend that they are busy and the delay is a "useful one."
Useful?
The mother of one of the astronauts was just on the radio. What does she want? She wants them home and she wants this over? You think it's been nervous in Mission Control? Ask a mother and you will find out about nervous.
It is--once again--L for Landing - 1. Re-set your alarm clocks again. For tomorrow.
L-One Hour
Not so fast. Bad weather delayed the launch and now delays the landing. What the folks at Mission Control are calling "an unstable situation" and so Discovery will go around one more time. That quote form Deputy Mission Director Wayne Hale about rocket science at its finest just won't go away.
All that build up. All those pre-landing nerves they won't tell us about. All that and now they get to add 90 minutes for one more orbit. Ever set in a plane coming in for landing and the pilot comes on to tell you "Sorry folks, we're going to have to go around one more time?"
It has to be like that. And then some. Re-set your alarm clocks now for 6:41 a.m. Eastern
It was L-one hour and now it isn't any more.
L-1 Again But Different
More than a dozen days ago it was L-1 for launch and now it is L-1 for landing and it is a day every bit as tense as that day at the launch site press site so many days ago.
Somewhere up there the Discovery Seven are cleaning up the last minute details for re-entry. Stow what might fly around. Make sure the computers are fed with the final ones and zeroes for the time and length of the rocket burn that will slow them down from orbit. Take last, long looks at the blue of earth below them.
They've had their final say for the public. Confident? Yes. Concerned? No. Sure it will be all right? Absolutely, at least in public. But what must they be thinking? At this writing they are under 12 hours away from heading down the same fiery path Columbia took to disaster two-and-a-half years ago. The quiet thoughts--the private ones--have to be the tough ones.
Same has to be the case in Mission Control. Same public confidence voiced. But what about the private doubts? Have they really found ALL the problems? Is it as fixed as they are convinced it is?
Think anybody is going to sleep this night? I don't.
It is L-1 and what everybody involved in this mission want to know and know now is what will the morning bring? What exactly?
• July 26, 2005 | 1:24 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: Launch day
T + 2 hours 18 minutes 56 seconds -- 1:24 p.m.
Discovery is well on her way.
Concerns will linger about what was or wasn't seen in those pictures during launch. Debris? Damage to the spacecraft? How worried to be or not to be?
|
As to that little sensor that wouldn't on last launch day and has driven 14 teams of troubleshooters berserk ever since, it behaved perfectly today. So perfectly that no matter what the launch team did to make it misbehave, it refused. So the "unexplained anomaly" remains just that and the mission managers are left to conclude that they "guess" it's fixed. Rocket science at its finest to quote Deputy Mission Director Wayne Hale one more time.
Final question that was dealt with today was, was today a "success" and to a man the launch team made it clear that no mission gets classified that way until it is over. "When it rolls to a stop on the skid strip," one of them said, "and the crew gets off, then we will call it a success." How committed to that position are they? NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has delayed the traditional post-launch party until post-landing. Home safe first and party later is the plan.
So 12 days ahead for the crew. Space walks. Repair work at the ISS and then home to a landing pre-dawn on Sunday August 7. Blog the rest of the mission? I think not. You have to be "there" to experience and blog an event or a story and since orbit is not where I am going, this effort is winding to a close.
Alan Boyle who is covering the mission exclusively for MSNBC.com will keep you current.
The air is going out of this press site as many make the run for Houston, which now has control of the mission. This then is "the final post." History buffs will know that's the last bugle call of the day; the last hurrah at day's or mission's end and that is what this post is. It is the final for Return to Space/Flashes and Flashbacks.
It is T + 2 hours 37 minutes now and this is fini.
T + 4 minutes and flying -- 10:43 a.m.
WOW! And add several more exclamation points if you like.
All descriptions after that -- and I used all of them during lift off -- run the risk of calling down the wrath of the FCC.
Compare this launch to the Saturn Vs that took the nation's astronauts to the moon? Damned hard.
|
This one, in the words of one astronaut who has flown on both Saturn and Shuttle, gets away fast, very fast. "They get off the ground like a scalded cat," he told me, "and they make orbit in eight minutes instead ten." But the sound from this as with Saturn when it hits is something you feel down to the bottom of your toes.
But that is technotalk. The emotion, this one as opposed to Saturn as opposed to the Titan IIs of Gemini or the Atlases of Mercury is exactly the same. You are watching people risk it all on top of something that can and will blow up and you are stunned. Blown away is a phrase that comes to mind, but is not the right one for this. Anybody who does not stand awestruck and feel it too, is missing something in the normal area. Something for sure.
So Discovery is off and arrowing toward the International Space Station.
But there are questions to answer. Tile damage? Tile loss? Anything that sounds like or feels like what happened to Columbia two-and-a-half years ago? First indication at a news conference coming in about an hour.
Will there be damage? "Expect some but do not panic" is the guidance from NBC News aerospace consultant Jim Oberg. Wait for all the pictures that were taken to be analyzed and wait until Discovery reaches the space station when the crew onboard it will take a good and close up look.
So one more post from us here after the news conference before the last post
It is T + 19 minutes now and it has been one hell of a show.
T-8 minutes 50 seconds and counting -- 10:30 a.m.
"Cleared to go" is the last from the launch director following the final "good to go" poll. The crew, the spacecraft and all its system and the range are now cleared for launch.
|
So if you are not watching television now you should be, and if you can't, streaming coverage is just a click away.
Back at you post whatever happens next at or before 10:39 a.m.
It is T-8 Minutes 50 Seconds and counting and I am finally crossing my fingers.
T-9 minutes and holding -- 10:05 a.m.
Right on time and right to the second the count has hit another critical point. This is the final pre-launch hold or should be. Forty-five minutes or so in length it is everyone’s last chance to make sure "all systems are go."
Only change is in the weather. It is now 90/10 favorable which is as good as it gets. One-hundred percent is a place NASA just doesn't go. It is also good in the abort-after-launch areas if it comes to that. And if it does, Zaragosa in Spain is the chosen landing site.
Now for the balance of this hold we wait and listen some more. Silence is a good thing.
It's at this time in every launch I have covered when I wondered about my pulse rate verses the onboard crew’s. Bet is mine is higher.
It is T-9 and Holding but not for too much longer.
T-19 minutes 45 seconds and counting –- 9:35 a.m.
What did we do while the count was in hold? We got as close to the speaker boxes out of which we hear what's called "NASA select." On it we hear chatter between Mission Control and the crew as post-launch timings are refined and the NASA information officer.
What were we listening for? What didn't we want to hear -- first sign of some problem; some sense of glitch that might delay the countdown or extend the hold.
So far, nothing and in this area especially, no word is good word.
So they count. Down to T-9 and hold again. After that unplanned holds will mean game over for this day. Nerves? You bet.
It is T- 19 Minutes 45 Seconds and Counting
T-20 minutes and holding -- 9:24 a.m.
Right on time. Right on schedule. It IS like clockwork. It is such precise clockwork that the launch team has refined liftoff for Discovery to 10:39 "and no seconds."
The count holds now for about 10 minutes or so as they go "around the horn" in Mission Control to make sure all areas are good to go and looking at green on their computer read outs. The Launch Director will poll every station and he has to hear "go" from each and every one. No further word on the sensor testing but since they have been so open so far, the sense is that no news continues to be good news.
After this hold, they will count down to T-9 minutes and hold again for approximately 40 minutes give or take some number of seconds to hit that launch time inside a launch window that is now just under ten minutes long. Margin for error? Not here.
Meantime, gremlin watch and gremlin patrol continues.
Beyond that, the next news here is of what the NASA press office calls the arrival of the VVIPS. Mrs. Bush and Governor Bush and members of Florida's congressional delegation. They will be here for the final phases of the countdown and what everyone hopes will be liftoff for Return to Space.
It is T-20 minutes and Mission Control holds and the rest of us wait.
T-1 hour 43 minutes -- 8:00 a.m.
|
Nothing is wrong. So far.
Talking with Winston Scott, who flew as mission specialist on two shuttle flights and now is part of the NBC coverage team has been insightful. "The wait that starts now is the worst," he says, "you're buttoned in and everything is ready and you just want to go before something goes wrong."
So we wait and every time the voice from mission control doing commentary speaks, every one of us twitches until we hear that nothing has gone wrong. It's a feeling I remember from past launches and that never changes either.
It is T-1 hour 43 minutes and we creep closer.
T- 2 Hours 58 minutes and counting -- 6:46 a.m.
Dawn sneaking up. All pastels. Stars were clearly visible and not a cloud in sight which is why the weather forecast has gone to 80/20 positive.
Count resumed right on time. Crew is dressed and getting ready for the ride to Launch Pad 39B. Arrival time: 7:19 a.m., ET, and by 8:34 they will be buttoned in. For commander Eileen Collins this is her fifth trip to the launch pad as she tries for her second flight aboard Discovery.
And so far not a sniff of a problem with any of the sensors or anything else. It's what they like to see and call a "textbook countdown." But you can't escape these two words -- so far.
Ahead, steady counting down until 9:44 a.m., ET; a 20-minute hold; then a 40-minute planned hold for a final check that everything is still green for go; and finally, terminal count starting at T-9 minutes which should come at 10:30 a.m., ET, unless they adjust liftoff slightly inside the 10-minute window they have this morning.
"No issues and on schedule" is what the voice from Mission Control is telling us.
It is T-2 hours 58 minutes and counting and you can really begin to feel this one in your gut. The only worries now are, is this going too smoothly; is there a gremlin lurking?
T-3 hours and holding 4:10 a.m.
Spooky moment. Just saw on ABC's overnight news shuttle launch number one -- Columbia on its maiden trip in 1981. First one I produced.
Anchored by the late Frank Reynolds with commentary from the late Jules Bergman who I met first twenty years before when Mercury began America's adventure in space.
The launch still gives a shiver, especially with the knowledge that out there for Columbia was the disaster that set the stage for this event.
T-3 hours for Discovery and Columbia's ghost still haunts.
T-3 hours and holding -- 3:45 a.m.
So Far, So Good. That is the word from Mission Control more than three hours into tanking and testing for Discovery.
The little sensor that wouldn't and scrubbed the first mission is behaving properly--so far. Constant testing and so far no problems. None.
And more good news as we move toward dawn. The weather outlook has gone from 60/40 good to 80/20. Less and less chance of thunderstorms or an anvil cloud build up scrubbing this one.
So from now until 10:39 a.m., ET, we are all on "gremlin watch." It's under six hours to go but they will be long ones.
It is T-3 hours and holding and so far it doesn't get any better than this despite the hour.
For more great information check out Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log
• July 25, 2005 | 5:45 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: The count is on
L-1 T- 10 Hours 55 Minutes and Counting -- 5:45 p.m.
Ahead are a lot critical moments and they all happen during the dead of night, ET.
|
How do you know if it is going well when you wake up? T-3 hours and holding until 7:44 a.m., ET, on the current schedule is fine. After that they should be counting. And look for the crew to be moving toward the pad shortly after 7 a.m.
Those are the signposts when you tune in or log in on launch day. After not enough sleep, this blog will be back with you starting at around 7 a.m., ET
It is L-1 and they are counting again and that is a very good thing.
L-11 Hours and Holding -- 4:08 p.m.
NASA always finds a way to make the watchers nervous. The issue now is the mobile service structure. It was supposed to roll away from Discovery at 1:30 p.m., ET; then 2:30; then 3:30; and now we are told to "expect first movement at 5 p.m."
Why? No answer other than "we are running behind." Is it to worry? Seems not, but the watchers find themselves pacing again. If it is, indeed, a "to worry" situation, we'll have a better sense of that around 5:44 p.m. Eastern when the countdown should resume.
Meantime, some talk about what's ahead for Discovery commander Eileen Collins. Tomorrow is to be her fifth trip to the launch pad for a shuttle mission. The fourth was earlier this month when she got on board and they scrubbed some two hours and twenty minutes before schedule liftoff.
The other three were on her first mission as commander of Discovery in 1999. That year Discovery finally got off the ground on July 23. Two scrubs for Collins on that attempt. The second was because of afternoon thunderstorms and was not a heartstopper. The first was the day before that and it was a heartstopper for sure. Discovery scrubbed at T-7 seconds, just four-tenths of a second before they would have lit the shuttle's main engine. Why? The launch window was going to be missed by a single second. One.
Talk about launchus interruptus. No record released of the conversation between Mission Control and mission commander post-scrub but the bet is on not pretty.
It is T-11 hours and we wait. Wait for the tower to move and wait for the clock to move as well. As was said yesterday, "It's rocket science -- at its finest."
L-1 T-11 Hours and Holding -- 12:24 p.m.
Silence from NASA so far this morning and that is a good thing in terms of work going on leading up to launch. But if NASA speaks there are far fewer ears here in the press corps to listen.
It's like a scythe was taken to the media group that was here for launch attempt one. Over a thousand then and perhaps half that by observation this time. Empty camera platforms. Fewer uplink trucks. Fewer reporters and broadcasters. Seats available -- lots of them -- at the press briefings. And for those of us still here or back here one benefit -- we could drive in by ourselves.
Clearly while the space agency was budgeted for more than one launch attempt this month, the media may not have been which makes you wonder this: If it was so important to be here for the first attempt why not the second? It is still, after all, the same attempted Return To Space.
And the answer is: "Got me." As a once-upon-a-time broadcast executive and manager I know the imperatives. The first on the first attempt was to "do all possible" and on the second to say "hey wait a minute, let's think about this." And that is exactly what has happened.
For us at least, Chris Jansing is back for MSNBC and Tom Costello for NBC and Jay Barbree our resident correspondent is still here. Full strength on the front line at least and that is what counts.
It is L-1 and all goes well for the shuttle but a lot of people are discovering that the price of poker is pretty steep.
L-1 T-11 Hours and Holding -- 10:12 a.m
"Ready to Fly"
"Watching the Weather."
Those are the headlines from the final countdown status briefing we will get before launch and they are stunningly similar to the ones we got at the very same briefing on July 12.
No problems they tell us so far with spacecraft or booster as they close things out and get ready for the roll back of the tower surrounding Discovery. That's now scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern. If they are going to have a repeat sensor problem, that will not reveal itself until they start loading liquid hydrogen aboard shortly before 1 a.m. tomorrow.
So this will be a day of watching the clouds -- again. For last launch the question was would sea breezes be strong enough to push developing thunderstorms inland and past Kennnedy Space Center. This time around it is weak sea breezes they want so any showers or thunderheads that develop off shore, stay off shore.
So where we are is into what the engineers call a series of "situationally dependent" areas.
Can weather be bad enough to scrub? It all depends.
If the sensor acts up again once tanking begins, will that produce a scrub? It all depends.
It is L-1 and we are getting a lesson in situational dependency.
L-1 T-11 Hours and Holding -- 7:33 a.m.
Relax. It is a planned hold which is where we will spend much of this day before the day. Not until late this afternoon do they start winding down again toward tomorrow morning's T-0 at 10:39 a.m., ET.
And where are we after all these days of hold and testing and investigating after the scrub on July 13th? About where we were on that very day. Only now NASA says it feels smarter and better about that troublesome sensor even though they still do not know why they had the problem they had.
They've been through "every test we can possibly think of" and all they know is that no matter what they do, they cannot make the sensor do what it did on launch day when the shuttle's tank was full of liquid hydrogen and chilled to several hundred degrees below zero. Asked in testing if it was "wet" the sensor said it was "dry." Asked if the tank was full, it answered "empty." That produced enough confusion and concern on the 13th to scrub the launch then and there. Try as they might with the tank and sensor "dry" and at normal temperature, they have not been able to make it happen again.
So what to do now? Start the countdown. Chill the tank down. See what happens. Doesn't sound very scientific but with all the testing they have done now and the full knowledge and certainty--they say--that with only one of the four sensors out it will be safe to fly, they will count to launch.
Now it comes down to a numbers game because they have, in a wonderful turn of engineering speak "two-failure tolerance." And that means?
It was sensor two that tested badly on last launch day. It is tied in the wiring plan to sensor four in the liquid hydrogen tank. If either of them goes haywire Tuesday, the Mission Management Team says they know they will be looking at a problem they have seen and can go ahead. But if sensors one or three shows a problem or any of the sensors monitoring the shuttle's liquid oxygen tank kicks up it will, quite simply be GAME OVER.
And if that happens? Deputy Mission Director Wayne Hale says, "We'll be hard pressed to make a July launch," and then it will be see you in September.
So even number failure is okay but odd number failure is bad and the time to start looking for this is at T-3 Hours and holding when it cropped up on launch attempt No. 1. That comes at 5:39 a.m., ET, on launch day and if they get past that point and get the crew into the shuttle. they will, Hale says, start to feel better about things.
Asked about the science of this all, Hale said with a smile, "Hey, it's rocket science."
It is L-1 and if you feel as though you have been there and done that once already, you are right.
For more great information check out Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log
• July 22, 2005 | 4:28 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: 'A very good day'
L-4 A good day -- 4:28 p.m.
From Mike Rein, the Director of Information, there is this: "Don't want to jinx anything but today was a very good day."
For sure.
|
Then there was Franklin, a little tropical storm that bubbled up in the Atlantic off Florida. By all computer models it is heading away and north and east toward the Bahamas. Bad weather coming for the islanders, tourists and the cruise ship crowd, but good news for the launch team and the Discovery crew who made it back to KSC today "safe and sound" as Rein put it.
Back to those ground wires and that sensor and this question: What if it is not solved after all and acts up again on launch day? An answer from Jim Oberg (www.jamesoberg.com), NBC's aerospace analyst and consultant. According to documents he has seen, the Mission Management team has concluded it will be safe to fly with only three of the four sensors.
And that is where things stand with under 90 hours to go. Flashes and Flashbacks will be starting up Monday from KSC right here at the Peacock Blog on msnbc.com. Be there.
It is L-4 and so far, everything is green for go. As Kermit reminds, it is not easy being green.
L-4 One more time -- 7:30 a.m.
Busy, busy but the order of business and battle for Discovery and its crew and launch team is becoming clear.
On the agenda today is the continuation of all that troubleshooting (read that solving) of the sensor problem that grounded the shuttle. While they won't say as much, NASA engineers appear to have their arms around the problem caused by a nettlesome loose wire and faulty ground somewhere in the system they still will not say that is IT, and so they are going to take care of IT and see if that does IT and then they will tell us.
While this goes on, the seven-member Discovery crew heads back to Kennedy Space Center landing at 11:30 a.m., ET, this morning. Expect commander Eileen Collins to have a few words of hope for launch on landing and then the shuttlenauts will disappear until we see them Tuesday heading for the pad.
For those who are A.) Seriously into this or B.) Are seriously into it and want to show off or C.) Just want to know, here are key times ahead that will are check points and sign posts to the Tuesday launch. (All times Eastern)
Saturday L-3
10 a.m. -- Launch countdown status briefing. NASA TV (yes, because your tax dollars are at work, there is a NASA TV) will carry it live. It streams at www.nasa.gov/returntoflight
Noon -- Countdown to launch officially begins.
Sunday L-2
10 a.m. -- Launch countdown status briefing. If there are problems they begin to be revealed here. Once again it streams at www.nasa.gov.
5 p.m. (more or less) -- Pre-launch press conference by Mission Management Team.
Monday L-1
10 a.m. -- Final pre-launch countdown status briefing. Watch for questions about the status of tanking and the status of the little sensor that wouldn't. Once again, it streams at www.nasa.gov/returntoflight.
1 p.m. -- Mobile service structure rolls away from the shuttle. When this happens you know it is getting serious.
Tuesday Launch Day
12:44 a.m. -- Launch commentary for shuttle tanking begins. If the sensor is going to misbehave again, it will happen sometime after this as the fuel tanks chill to several hundred degree below zero.
5 a.m. -- Crew breakfast. NASA will cover so look for pictures on MSNBC and on the NASA web site.
7a.m. -- Crew heads for pad 39B and Discovery.
10:39 a.m. -- Liftoff for STS-114
So there it is smart people, your guide through the early going. Look here Monday for more detailed time line information of critical pre-launch events for the spacecraft and the crew so you can really be smarter than the other guy or gal over morning coffee. Remember, for this one it is everybody up early and much of this happens before you reach the office water cooler.
It is L-4 and it is just about time for the press that left after the scrub to start heading back.
For more great information check out Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log
• July 21, 2005 | 3:59 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: Back on track
L-5 One more time -- 3:59 p.m.
As this day draws to a close, the way for Discovery off the pad and back into space is becoming clear.
Or clearer at least.
Troubleshooting and testing on the hinky sensor continues with some rewiring and some part replacement part of the process. That will continue through tomorrow.
|
If it does, it is hard decision time for the launch team. Do they call it off again or go for door number two --The Hell With it option -- and agree they have "failed into" a three-sensor launch and just go for it. They've already admitted then CAN do that. They wouldn't like it, but they CAN do it.
Pressure for that option will be intense because the month is almost up. If they miss on Tuesday, they will try again Wednesday and then rest on Thursday and try once more Friday. Miss then, they will regroup Saturday and take one more crack at it Sunday the 31st.
At that point, is it over until September? It is a NASA kind of answer -- maybe yes; maybe no. The Mission Management team indicates it is considering extending "several days" into August when daylight on the launch would be less than satisfactory. Considering but not deciding is where they are today.
Hard choices ahead and a lot of work being done with fingers crossed.
It is L-5 and things are getting exciting. Again.
L-5 Again -- 7:27 a.m.
No longer just another day after the scrub a week ago Wednesday, but a day when a re-energized Discovery launch team gets set to resume the countdown this Saturday for a launch next Tuesday at 10:39 a.m., ET. After some seven hours of meetings yesterday, that was the word from the Discovery team. Much work to do, but they are ready and they can make it.
Is the sensor problem found and fixed? Not exactly has to be the answer. It's complicated but all those engineers mucking about in the wiring have found what's described as a "faulty ground" associated with the Engine Cutoff Sensor that read wrong on last launch day. While not 100 percent convinced that that IS the problem, since that kind of condition was on the list of "likely causes," the Mission Management team is comfortable enough to go ahead.
Still ahead? More testing and some rewiring and then as the pre-launch countdown continues, a critical test next Monday. That is when they will load liquid hydrogen into the shuttle's fuel tank and chill it down. That was the point on launch day when the sensor readings went haywire and the decision to bag it was made. If, as they say, all goes well with that test Monday or they convince themselves that it has, Tuesday is the day.
Oh yes -- weather permitting.
Meantime, the Discovery crew will be heading back to the launch site from Houston and the weather officers are once again becoming the most sought after people on the press site.
It is L-5 again and everyone is packing. Again. And all eyes will be on the sky and the clock. Again.
For more great information check out Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log
• July 20, 2005 | 5:30 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: Waiting on tomorrow
Scrub day +7 -- 5:30 p.m.
By tomorrow, the headline on this may be L- with a new launch date for Discovery finally set. That, at least, is what is expected from the Mission Management team later this evening when they conclude this afternoon's review of progress so far.
What we do know comes from NBC News aerospace consultant Jim Oberg (www.jamesoberg.com) who has been right on the money since the scrub. His sources are telling him three things:
1.) That tanking test to fill and chill the shuttle's hydrogen fuel tank will likely be moved from next Tuesday to next Monday. That removes a conflict with a potential Tuesday launch.
|
2.) Tuesday the 26th is now viewed as "the best possible launch date." Liftoff inside the ten-minute window that day would be 10:31 a.m. Eastern, well before the buildup of thunderstorms that was a worry in the late afternoon last week.
3.) Engineers believe they've found a problem with grounding circuit for the sensor that was misbehaving. While they don't tell Oberg that's THE problem that caused the launch scrub, they say something like that was "on the list" of things they were looking for.
So we're nearing green for go is the indication as this blog closes out this day. For late word, check MSNBC.com and MSNBC on television.
It is scrub day + 7 for Discovery but tomorrow may be L-5 for a Tuesday launch. Stay tuned.
Scrub day +7 -- 11:04 a.m.
This Day In History.
On this day 36 years ago I know exactly where I was. In Japan, struggling to hear commentary from Mission Control on Japanese television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin settled to the moon. I'd been at KSC for launch; heard the cool and controlled Walter Cronkite say on air "Go, baby, go" as the Saturn V pushed Apollo 11 toward orbit and then the moon; waved goodbye to my wife who went north with Cronkite with whom she was working; and I headed west. Orlando to Los Angeles to Honolulu to Tokyo to produce the far eastern element of CBS News global coverage of the lunar landing.
As a television experience in Tokyo for a non-Japanese speaker, it was mind-bending. Excited commentary. Dynamic graphics running up and down the screen instead of across and so much talk. Way down under all that talk was Mission Control in English. So sitting in the middle of the night in the middle of an empty cafeteria at NHK I was able to hear "The Eagle Has Landed" and I toasted it in stale, black coffee.
You experience history where and when you can, and this one was another of those days impossible to forget.
For Discovery it is scrub day +7 and we wait for word.
For Apollo 11 it is landing day + 36 years and we celebrate. Or should.
Scrub day + 7 -- 7:07 a.m.
Another day of waiting. Waiting to find out if NASA will confirm that next Tuesday is really the launch day or just the day they "wet test" the shuttle's hydrogen tank as a last step in trouble shooting the sensor problem that has them tied in knots. If that is the case, will they then be able to launch on Wednesday the 27th as is currently rumored?
Big questions and both the astronauts and the press heading back to the launch site need the answer so we know when to pack and when to fly. The question after that is will the press know where to fly to? That is asked not idly on this steamy morning in the Northeast because based on a fair amount of what is in print and on the air, it seems a big piece of the press corps is either lost or severely disadvantaged when it comes to basic geography.
How do I know?
Driving toward an airport to abandon Florida after last week's scrub, the radio station I could get gave me CNN Radio News and on the hour the anchor led to a report "on the latest on Discovery, live from Cape Canaveral." Interesting. To be true, that would mean the reporter left the launch site which is at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island and drove about 22 miles across two large bridges to reach the old launch sites for Projects Mercury and Gemini which is, indeed, at Cape Canaveral. But he didn't I would bet.
Cape Canaveral, somehow, has entered the press' shorthand as THE place where America launches for space. My fine network news organization did it too, promoting the presence of one of its anchors "at Cape Canaveral" until a purist like me said "hey wait a minute." The AP continues to do it despite years ago having told other purists at another network that they, the AP, were dead wrong on the dateline. Cape Canaveral for launches somehow has become a generic. Everything we blow our nose into is a "Kleenex." Every copy we make is a "Xerox." And every launch is from "Cape Canaveral." Not so fast.
Why the big deal? Accuracy seems a pretty good answer. Not misleading a generation of school kids seems a pretty good answer too. Keeping some poor fool from losing on Jeopardy is not as good an answer but interesting to think about anyway.
So here it is. A vote for geographic accuracy. It ain't catchy, but I am packing at week's end to return to the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. I hope those of you heading for Cape Canaveral don't miss the launch.
It is scrub day +7 and there are all kinds of questions that need answering.
For more great information check out Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log
• July 19, 2005 | 5:30 p.m. ET
Gralnick’s Shuttle Diary: Maybe the word
Scrub Day + 6 -- 5:30 p.m.
And now the word from NASA. It is next Tuesday for Discovery at the earliest. Maybe. Yes. Maybe.
Looking at all the testing that remains to be done to chase down a solution to that troublesome sensor, the Mission Management Team has set next Tuesday, July 26, as the first possible launch date. But behind the scenes, the word seems to be "not likely" because yet to be done is testing on the sensor with the liquid hydrogen tank fully loaded and chilled to the point where the sensor failed in the last countdown. By most guesses -- and we are dealing now in educated guesses from all over the lot -- the first day that test can happen is Tuesday the 26th, the provisional launch date. Got it?
|
So Tuesday or Wednesday. For sure. Maybe. And time is ticking away. The window of this launch period closes after the 31st unless a last-minute decision to keep it open for several days in August is taken.
It is scrub day + 6 and all manner of wheels are turning for Discovery.
To read Jeff's blog from earlier on scrub day + 6, click here.
• July 19, 2005 | 11:57 a.m. ET
Covering a hurricane (Steve Shapiro, Producer)
Covering a hurricane is an eye-opening experience. During Hurricane Dennis I was teamed up with MSNBC Anchor/Reporter Lisa Daniels, Photo Journalist Chris Borghesani and Audio Technician Paul Leeman. We arrived the day before the storm and reported from Pensacola Beach where Hurricane Ivan had struck less than a year ago. The damage was still visible and it was clear the last thing Pensacola Beach needed was another violent storm to pound its shoreline. We took notice of the beachfront hotels and condominiums that were demolished by Ivan and wondered what would happen this time around. The following day we set up shop at the Ramada Inn waiting for Dennis to come roaring through. We knew we were in for a long day that would in all likelihood include the loss of power, phone service, hot water and perhaps worse, hot food.
|
In the afternoon the wind and rain began to pick-up and at approximately 4:00 p.m., Dennis was barreling through Pensacola. Our team ventured out into the storm several times while it was passing through. At one point Lisa was live on the air with MSNBC anchor Natalie Allen for more than 10 minutes providing viewers with a first hand account of the storm. We took particular notice of the roof shingles that were breaking apart above our heads and turning into projectiles.
The hurricane destroyed my cell phone, which proved to be a real challenge since our landlines had been knocked out as well. Communicating with my fellow producers back in the studio became extremely difficult. Fortunately Chris had brought a satellite phone with him, which basically saved the day and kept us in communication throughout the rest of the evening.
Once the storm passed, it was time to survey the damage and continue our live reports for MSNBC. It was clear from the damage around the hotel that Dennis packed a punch. It uprooted trees, knocked down power lines, and scattered debris everywhere.
Lisa continued to provide her live reports until midnight, and after an exhausting day it was finally time to call it a night. The only problem was that we had to retire to our rooms that had no electricity, which meant no air conditioning and of course no light. After brushing my teeth while holding a flashlight and sleeping for a restless few hours it was time to get up and head to Navarre Beach where the most damage occurred. At Navarre Beach Lisa interviewed FEMA Director Michael Brown who choppered in to assess the damage. It was clear the clean-up was once again going to be costly.
In the end, Dennis left residents of the Florida Panhandle to pick up the pieces of yet another storm. Everyone in Pensacola was extremely gracious to us while we were there, but I can assure you they don't want to see any of us again anytime soon!
Questions/Comments: