Thu, Jul 05, 2007
And Even Then, It Ain't Lookin' Good
More weather woes for NASA, this time affecting its
delay-plagued Dawn spacecraft. A lightning advisory near Kennedy
Space Center Thursday morning forced the space agency to scrub its
plans to begin fueling the second-stage of the probe's United
Launch Alliance Delta II booster rocket.
The delay in fueling pushes the launch date for Dawn to July 8,
one day later than previously scheduled. NASA will again try to
fuel the second stage Thursday afternoon; if the weather remains a
concern, fueling will be performed Friday.
Lightning wasn't the only concern at the Cape. Also Thursday
morning, the temperature within the fairing caused the required
temperature of the second stage to be too warm for fueling to
begin. The fairing temperature is being lowered by 10 degrees so
that oxidizer loading can begin Thursday afternoon, if weather is
acceptable.
The launch window on Sunday, July 8, extends from 4:04 to 4:33
pm EDT... but the chance of not meeting the launch weather criteria
on Sunday is 60 percent, according to NASA.
These latest delays are but the latest to strike the problematic
Dawn spacecraft, which NASA hopes will eventually be sent into the
heavens to study the twin asteroids Ceres and Vesta, between Mars
and Jupiter. Cancelled by the space agency due to cost overruns in
early 2006, before being reinstated one month later, Dawn's planned
June launch date was already moved off once, after a crane used to
stack segments of the Delta II booster broke down.
A worker's wrench also fell on the spacecraft's solar panel
during a procedure to prepare the spacecraft for spin-balance
testing, though it did not damage any cells.
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