Launch Not Scheduled Until February 3rd

ANN Update 12.21.2010 0935 EST: Teams at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida now are targeting space shuttle Discovery's roll from Launch Pad 39A back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for Tuesday night (Dec. 21), with first motion off the pad at 2200 EST.

Technicians are working to resolve an issue with the leveling system on the crawler-transporter. They believe a faulty transducer is the problem, and it can be changed out to support rollback, which the move is called, Tuesday night.

Original Story: Space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to roll back from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for additional work related to its final scheduled mission. The first motion of the shuttle is targeted for 0030 EST on Tuesday, Dec. 21.

In the VAB, technicians will scan below the foam insulation surrounding the intertank section of Discovery's external tank to look for any issues, such as cracks. They also will reapply foam after removing 89 sensors from the tank's aluminum skin following an instrumented tanking test on Dec. 17.

The sensors were used to measure changes in the tank as super-cold propellants were pumped in and drained out during the test. Data and analysis from the test will be used to determine what caused the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the intertank to crack during fueling on Nov. 5.

Discovery's next launch attempt is no earlier than 0137 on Feb. 3.

The fully assembled space shuttle, consisting of orbiter Discovery, the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, is mounted on a mobile launcher platform and will be returned to the VAB atop a crawler transporter. The crawler will travel slower than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey, which is expected to take about six hours.

FMI: www.nasa.gov