Posted on 09/19/2006 8:53:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Wow.
Don't know what's going on yet, but I hope they haven't started any de-orbit burns yet. If so, getting back to ISS might be a hurdle. I read that their nominal oxygen supply runs out after Saturday but I'm sure they've got backups. Without ISS they really don't have an alternate re-entry means. Can anyone add to that or correct?
And if they had to do that, I think you can probably count on that Shuttle never coming home. Meaning that they've got the deorbit propellant available for the rendezvous.
spaceflightnow.com
1605 GMT (12:05 p.m. EDT)
In the news briefing now underway at Johnson Space Center, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale says the object could be a piece of ice, the plastic shim used during tile installation seen hanging off the belly of Atlantis during inspections earlier in the mission or something else. Officials are discussing further observations of Atlantis using the shuttle inspection boom. That would happen tomorrow, since the crew is nearing its bedtime for today.
Someone lost a spatula up there last time.
Bump
That would be the case, unless it is something they could replace/repair if they had the parts.
Close. Pluto is a Muslim planet (furthest one from the sun) and this is payback for calling it a sub-planet.
I saw "2001" eight times when it came out.I started to watch it again recently on DVD - it's the biggest sleeping pill in the galaxy.
If it's "big" as reported, then that'd be difficult. My first guess is still "ice," though.
Sigh. It's times like this that I wish I was still down in Houston, working Shuttle missions....
I was responding to something someone posted on this thread. I was finding it to incredible to believe that something as large as a satellite could be misplaced/lost for any length of time.
Paging Art Bell, Come in Art Bell.........
spaceflightnow.com
1745 GMT (1:45 p.m. EDT)
NASA managers today ordered the Atlantis astronauts to stop their landing preparations and to delay re-entry 24 hours to Thursday to give flight controllers additional time to assess the implications of an unusual object spotted earlier today flying below the shuttle.
The object may have shaken off the shuttle earlier today, possibly due to vibrations associated with routine pre-landing tests of the shuttle's hydraulic system and maneuvering jets. The concern is the possibility of damage to the shuttle's heat shield or some other critical component that could cause problems during re-entry.
In what could be a coincidence, engineers monitoring data from sensors mounted behind the ship's carbon composite wing leading edge panels recorded eight "events" over a two-minute period earlier today. It's not yet clear whether the data indicates an actual impact event, vibrations associated with the entry tests or some other phenomenon. While the timing was coincidental, an impact event would not be expected to trigger multiple signatures. But engineers do not yet have an explanation.
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