space
shuttle Discovery's
seven astronauts flew to Florida on Monday for several days of dress rehearsal
in preparation for their Dec. 7 launch on a mission to the International Space Station.
Led by commander Mark Polansky, the astronauts will run through
emergency escapes from the launch pad, practice landing on Kennedy Space
Center's runway and learn how to put out fires on the shuttle. The dress
rehearsal culminates Thursday with the crew donning their spacesuits, strapping
into the shuttle and practicing a launch countdown.
"It's a chance for us to
get a lot of training and see our vehicle on the pad for the first time,'' Polansky
said after landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
During the 12-day
mission, Discovery will rotate out a space
station crew member, and its astronauts will rewire the space lab's
electrical system.
Meanwhile, NASA managers in
New Orleans reviewed a possible
design change to the shuttle's external fuel tank and could decide this
week to modify the tank for a mission
next March. Foam breaking free of the external tank has vexed NASA ever
since a piece of foam struck the space shuttle Columbia's wing during liftoff in
2003, causing a gash that allowed fiery gases to penetrate the spacecraft.
Seven astronauts were killed.
The space agency has spent
three years trying to figure out how to keep foam loss to a minimum.
NASA already made one
major change to the tank--removing 37 pounds of foam--after a large chunk
fell off during the first return-to-flight
mission last year. The new design change would likely remove foam from the
top three or four of the almost three dozen wedge-shaped brackets along the tank
that hold pressurization lines in place.
Next year, NASA plans to change the tank even
further by making the brackets with titanium.
Also this week, NASA
planned to test-fire solid rocket motors in Utah to see whether their
illumination provides enough light to take photographs of the external tank at
night. Discovery is set to be the first night launch in four years.
NASA had required daylight
launches for the three flights after Columbia to make sure engineers had clear
photos of the shuttle's external fuel tank.
About 220 miles above
Earth, the space station's three occupants checked out Russian spacesuits
Monday in preparation for a spacewalk next week. During the spacewalk, Russian
cosmonaut Mikhail
Tyurin will whack a
golf ball from outside the space station on behalf of a Canadian golf club
manufacturer that has paid the Russian space agency an undisclosed sum for the
publicity stunt.
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