21-March-2008, 04:34 PM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 10,368
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SpaceflightNow: Hubble servicing mission's launch date threatened
Quote:
[...] subsequent near-term flights, including a high-profile mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, could be delayed, sources say, because of ongoing external tank production issues.
[...]
Safe haven aboard the space station is not an option for Atlantis' crew if major heat shield damage occurs. The observatory and the station are in different orbits and the shuttle does not have the ability to move from one to the other. As a result, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin early on approved plans to have a second shuttle, Endeavour, ready for launch on a rescue mission just in case.
That means NASA needs two ready-to-fly external tanks for the Hubble mission, ET-127 and ET-129 respectively. Manpower and production issues, triggered in part by unplanned work to upgrade low-level hydrogen fuel sensors and other post-Columbia design upgrades, have slowed external tank manufacturing and sources say the Hubble mission faces a possible delay to October.
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