NASA Clears Discovery for Sat July 1st Launch-now July 4th

Ripped from space.com:

NASA cleared the space shuttle Discovery and its seven-astronaut crew for flight Thursday as the clock ticks down towards a July 1 planned launch.

"We are ready to go for Saturday and do what NASA does best," said John Shannon, NASA's deputy shuttle chief and head of the STS-121 Mission Management Team (MMT), here at Kennedy Space Center.

Shannon said no major technical issues are afflicting the spacecraft or its launch stack, and that 21 top mission managers and engineers voted unanimously to forge ahead with Discovery's STS-121 mission—NASA's second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia accident—after a two-hour meeting.

Discovery's STS-121 mission will test new external tank safety modifications and deliver vital supplies to two astronauts currently circling Earth aboard the ISS.

But only if the weather will cooperate.

Weather officials said that the threat of isolated showers, thunderstorms and thick clouds, which could trigger lightning during Discovery's planned 3:48:37 p.m. EDT (1948:37 GMT) launch time, give the planned space shot a 60-percent chance of staying on Earth.

In fact, the lightning hazards prevented pad workers from loading Discovery with the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuels used to generate power during the spacecraft's 12-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The seven-hour operation was slated to begin at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) today, but launch officials were concerned that a lightning strike could ignite the super-chilled propellant in the event of a leak.

"We're a little bit behind schedule now," said NASA launch director Michael Leinbach. "We have plenty of hold time remaining in the countdown so right now I don't see this as a big issue."

Discovery's upcoming spaceflight will continue tests of shuttle heat shield inspection and repair techniques demonstrated during NASA's first post-Columbia flight—STS-114 aboard Discovery—last summer.

NASA's STS-121 astronaut crew, commanded by shuttle veteran Steven Lindsey, will also deliver European Space Agency (ESA) spaceflyer Thomas Reiter to the ISS, where he will join Expedition 13 crew of Pavel Vinogradov and Jeffrey Williams. Reiter's arrival will return the space station to its three-person capacity after more than two years of limited, two-person crews.


Seanie.
(Go Discovery!)

Shannon said no major technical issues are afflicting the spacecraft or its launch stack, and that 21 top mission managers and engineers voted unanimously to forge ahead with Discovery's STS-121 mission.....

Introducing that team........ :lol: :lol: :lol:

I've got a bad feeling about this flight. You may have heard that the Engineering and Safety directorates gave a No-Go for launch, but were strong armed into changing their minds - echos of what happened at Thiokol before Challenger. NASA's chief enginner at KSC, Charlie Camarda (an astronaut who flew on Discovery's RTF mission last year) was in essence fired for offering a dissenting voice with regard to the launch decision - he refused to back the MMT findings and was forced to fall on his sword. Pressure to launch and stick to a schedule has become the driver again - and such pressures lead to the loss of Columbia and Challenger.

I hope I'm wrong.

I hope you're wrong too Brian. Shades of Thiokol indeed. What a terrible state of affairs this is.

I hope the launch goes well and the astronauts land safely at the end of the mission. If they don't, all hell will break loose and yet another crew will go amongst the imperishable stars...

Dave

It will be nice to see the bird back in space

I hope so too Dave. I just can't shake this feeling though - I hope to God I'm wrong and Discovery will make it through this flight without a scratch.