Shuttle Discovery: successful mission and landing

[JonathanBelles]

just mentioned, which might catch tthe eye of the weather world, was the sight of an aurora.

[JonathanBelles]

because of the 4th spacewalk, they will pushback landing from a few hours to a day. they have said they will land by friday no matter where they have to land.

[P.K.]

you can actually see the ISS from the ground?

Pretty easily yes. I took a photo of it passing over around 300km up a few years back with a 2.1 megapixel camera and you could easily make the out the different modules making the ISS or so said one of my friends who knew everything there was to know about space. Next pass here is 20 min or so away, I'll see if I can get anything through the gaps in the cloud.

[JonathanBelles]

its going to pass over here in an hour so ill look then, but id like to see some pics.

[JonathanBelles]

is http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/t ... index.html on time or is there a lag?

[P.K.]

Too cloudy sadly this time. Would have been a decent pass as well looking at the tracking page on the NASA site.

Found the picture from 10/4/2002 so just over 56 months ago in which time they've added bits.

[JonathanBelles]

that image is small, i will be going out in 15-30 mins i think, no clouds here.

[JonathanBelles]

actully im going out now.

[JonathanBelles]

nope it was too bright

[P.K.]

3 times optical zoom and a height of 300km will give you a very small image. All it looks like when you view it normally is a light moving across the sky.

[brunota2003]

I'm surprised no one has said anything about the landing tomorrow...:

HOUSTON - Faced with some less-than-perfect choices,
NASA watched the weather report in three time zones Thursday as it struggled to pick a landing site for space shuttle Discovery's return to Earth.
PUBLICIDAD

The space agency planned to bring the ship home on Friday, after a 13-day mission during which its crew rewired the international space station.

But showers and clouds were in the forecast at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and crosswinds were expected at NASA's next-best option, Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.

At NASA's third-best choice, White Sands, N.M., the weather looked favorable, but that could change later in the day because of a front coming from California. And New Mexico is considered inconvenient, because the space agency would have to fly some heavy equipment there to transport the shuttle back to Florida.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_ ... ce_shuttle

[brunota2003]

I do have a question though...what exactly are the specs for a landing? I know here at Cherry Point, we are supposed to have rain tomorrow, so the ceiling would be an issue (not to mention we are only an auxillary landing site for the shuttle) I'm just curious what they need to land...cross-winds of 17 PMH or less, but what else? I think that CP should be a main back-up landing site though...for these reasons:
1) Proximity to Florida
2) Money (especially in cases like White Sands, where equipment would need to be shipped and the shuttle, we are alot closer than the other two sites)
3) dont have to worry about sand/grit, unless we have been in a major drought

but the disatvantages would be:
1) Near population areas
2) Hurricane prone areas
3) Landing strip maybe a tad short? (dont know how much space is needed, but Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point is the largest MCAS in the world)

I found this on CP's site:
"Its runway system is so large that the air station serves as an alternate emergency landing site for the space shuttle launches out of Cape Canaveral, Fla."
so whats the difference between a lauch and landing when it comes to picking sites?

[gtalum]

A landing in White Sands would be crazy. As far as I can recall, the last time they landed there was the early 1980's for some of the very first shuttle missions.

On a side note, there's an interesting book called Shuttle Down which details a fictional account of a Space Shuttle landing at Easter Island after an aborted liftoff and the trouble that NASA has in getting it back to the US.

I think the main difference between selecting sites for landing after an aborted liftoff and alternate "regular" landing sites is desperation. In an aborted takeoff, they'll be willing to designate any possible site as an alternative, because there will be little chance of maneuvering to a more preferable site in that situation. When landing from orbit, though, they have complete control and can be very selective about where to land.

[JonathanBelles]

just looking outside it looks like there will be little chance for landing due to clouds.

[dizzyfish]

It really doesn't look good for a landing here in Florida.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapCli ... 8&map.y=96

They said that the earliest landing time is 3:56pm at Kennedy. They are predicting rain showers after 1.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... index.html

See above for landing options.

[brunota2003]

Yes gtalum, there has only been one shuttle landing in White Sands before, and that was Columbia in 1982...I wouldnt of known about it if I didnt have the National Geographic magazine detailing the landing... their main concern with WS though is that the sand and grit from the surrounding areas gets into EVERYTHING, every nook and cranny will have to be cleaned very well...

[Brent]

The last 2 lines is funny.

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA managers cleared Discovery to return home Friday, planning for a possible touchdown in New Mexico for only the second time in space shuttle history because of bad weather on both coasts.

As the crew woke up to Christmas music Friday morning, they still didn't know where the spacecraft would touch down.

"I have a lot of things to worry about on this flight that I can control, and the weather is something I can't," Discovery commander Mark Polansky told reporters from space. "I'm ready to land at any of the three sites."

Discovery needs to be on the ground Saturday or it could run out of the fuel that powers its electrical system.

NASA normally has more time for the landing, but the astronauts spent an extra day at the international space station this week to work on a stubborn solar array.

Rain and clouds were forecast during the shuttle's first landing opportunity Friday afternoon at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and crosswinds were expected at NASA's next-best option, Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.

The third option, White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, hasn't been used for a shuttle landing in 24 years, and in that landing, sand on the runway contaminated the orbiter, and the brakes were damaged. It isn't normally equipped to service the shuttles, either.

NASA managers hoped the weather would clear at one of the favored sites by the first landing opportunity, but they shipped a crane to White Sands anyway, along with equipment that purges gases and cools and heats the shuttle on the ground, thruster plugs and 60 workers from the Kennedy Space Center.

"As we get closer, we'll have much more certainty on what we're really faced with," said entry director Norm Knight, who will direct the landing.

The first landing opportunity was set for 3:56 p.m. EST at Kennedy Space Center. Other opportunities were 1 1/2 hours later at all three sites, followed by opportunities at Edwards and White Sands 1 1/2 hours after that. NASA managers were considering a last try at 8:36 p.m. ET at Edwards.

NASA has seven more opportunities to land the shuttle on Saturday.

Discovery originally had been scheduled to land on Thursday, but the flight was extended to allow a fourth spacewalk to fold up an accordion-like solar array on the space station.

Thursday afternoon, after another inspection and more analysis of the shuttle's heat shields, the space agency pronounced Discovery safe to return. Shuttles are routinely inspected in flight now for any debris damage of the sort that doomed Columbia in 2003.

During the 25 years of the shuttle program, there have been 63 landings at Kennedy, 50 at Edwards and just one at White Sands.

Even though the White Sands runway regularly is used for practice landings by astronauts, NASA does not like to use it for the real event. It could take as long as two months to get the shuttle back to Florida from New Mexico, compared to a week from Edwards, threatening NASA's ability to get Discovery ready to fly again next October.

Flight controllers in Houston, trying their hand at holiday songwriting, sent the Discovery crew in their daily messages lyrics to their version of the song, "Let it Snow."

"Oh, the weather at KSC is frightful. But at White Sands, it's so delightful. And since we have to land. Land White Sands. Land White Sands. Land White Sands," it said.

[JonathanBelles]

haha i like the tune but "i wish it were at KSC, i wish it were at KSC, i wish it were at KSC for landing today." lol

[JonathanBelles]

this is an awesome shot taken by discovery on day 11:

[JonathanBelles]

deorbit burn would take place at 4:26 pm for KSC on orbit 203