spaceflightnow.com
1420 GMT (10:20 a.m. EDT)
Engineers at the Kennedy Space Center began pumping a half-million gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket fuel into the shuttle Atlantis’ repaired external tank today at 9:55 a.m., setting the stage for launch at 7:38 p.m. on a space assembly mission. This will be NASA’s first shuttle flight of 2007, thanks to a three-month delay to fix hail damage.
The three-hour fueling process, carried out by remote control from the firing room 3.2 miles from launch pad 39A, should be complete around 1 p.m. NASA television coverage is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. followed by a traditional dining room photo opportunity with the crew.
Wearing bright orange pressure suits, commander Rick Sturckow, pilot Lee Archambault, flight engineer Steve Swanson, Patrick Forrester, Danny Olivas, Jim Reilly and space station astronaut Clay Anderson are scheduled to depart crew quarters at 3:47 p.m. and head for the pad.
Only a few missions remain for each of the shuttles. They are nearly done, although since the launches are so infrequent it will take a couple years to finish up.
spaceflightnow.com
1642 GMT (12:42 p.m. EDT)
T-minus 3 hours and holding. The countdown has gone into the next planned hold in the timeline. This hold is scheduled to last three hours.
1630 GMT (12:30 p.m. EDT)
Loading of the external tank is nearing completion under cloudy skies. Weather conditions are “red” at the moment due to violations of the cumulus and anvil cloud rules. The weather team continuously monitors the conditions and marks the launch rules “green” or “red” throughout the countdown. South of the Kennedy Space Center, it has been raining lightly throughout the morning.
Sorry to interrupt the Paris coverage.
spaceflightnow.com
1730 GMT (1:30 p.m. EDT)
The launch team is not tracking any technical issues in the countdown. Weather conditions are the only worry right now.
1710 GMT (1:10 p.m. EDT)
Filling of Atlantis’ external fuel tank was called complete at 12:57 p.m. EDT. The tank has been pumped full with a half-million gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The three-hour fueling process started at 9:55 a.m. with the chilldown conditioning.
But given the cryogenic nature of the oxidizer and propellant, the supplies naturally boil away. So the tanks are continuously topped off until the final minutes of the countdown in a procedure called “stable replenishment.”
With the hazardous tanking operation completed, the Orbiter Closeout Crew and Final Inspection Team have been given the OK to go out to the pad to perform their jobs. The closeout crew will ready Atlantis’ crew module for the astronauts’ ingress in a couple of hours; and the inspection team will give the entire vehicle a check for any ice formation following fueling.