[Atmob-club] [Atmob-announce] shuttle Atlantis launch delayed until January

[GerryHaas at aol.com]

Bernie,
 
  In the original tanking 3 sensors showed problems, 2 during tanking  then a 
3rd failed
while de-tanking. This put the whole sensor system in a suspect mode, as 3  
out
of the 4 showed problems and 2 are needed to work properly to protect the  
shuttle.
The crew and mission management team agreed Saturday to change the  mission
rules to permit a try if all 4 appeared to be working properly. Below I  have 
cut an 
pasted a portion of story Bill Harwood CBS, who is an excellent source of  
shuttle news,
wrote sat evening explaining the rational.
 
 Regards, Gerry Haas
               Abington,  Ma
 
7:20 PM, 12/8/07, Update: NASA clears Atlantis for Sunday launch  try  
NASA's Mission Management Team today cleared the shuttle Atlantis for a  
second launch attempt Sunday, but agreed that any additional problems with  
suspect low-level hydrogen fuel sensors in the ship's external tank will trigger  
another delay.  
In additional to requiring that all four engine cutoff - ECO - sensors in the 
 shuttle's hydrogen tank work flawlessly, the MMT also said new 
instrumentation  that monitors the status of the sensors must be in perfect working order 
as  well.  
For the first time, data from that instrumentation will be used during ascent 
 to give flight controllers insight into the health of the sensors and the  
shuttle's launch window will be reduced from five minutes to just one minute to 
 ensure Atlantis takes off with enough fuel to protect against worst-case  
failures that otherwise might drain the tank faster than expected.  
"Tomorrow, we've decided to go tank and if everything works perfectly, as we  
would expect from our past history, we'll go fly," said shuttle Program 
Manager  Wayne Hale. "And if we have any other anomalies, or a repeat of an 
anomaly, then  we think it is worthwhile to stand down and troubleshoot. The nature 
of that  troubleshooting and how long it would take is a little bit open ended. 
We'll  wait to see what happens before we decide that. But suffice it to say 
we would  not be launching tomorrow and it probably would reduce our chances 
of launching  in the December launch window substantially."  
But if the hardware cooperates, "we're going to give it a shot tomorrow," he  
said.




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