NASA has cleared Discovery for a launch this morning to the International Space Station, the last scheduled liftoff in darkness for the soon-to-retire shuttle program.
Mission managers met on Saturday and gave the “go” to proceed toward liftoff. The unanimous decision came after engineers determined there were no booster rocket safety concerns. Two booster problems recently cropped up when the parts were tested offsite.
Forecasters expect an 80 percent chance of good weather for the 6:21am (10:21am GMT) liftoff, close to an hour before sunrise.
PHOTO: AFP
Even though yesterday was Easter, countdown preparations continued as usual, with the same number of workers. Launch director Pete Nickolenko said he asked his team if anyone had any conflicts because of the holiday, and no one did.
Discovery is loaded with spare parts and science experiments for the space station. A crew of seven will deliver all the gear and conduct three spacewalks to set everything up.
On Saturday, the astronauts got their customary preflight haircuts.
“Pre-launch haircut complete ... High and tight!” balding crew member Clayton Anderson wrote in a Twitter update. He said some of his Marine astronaut buddies “would be proud!”
Only three shuttle flights remain after this one. US President Barack Obama will visit the Cape Canaveral area on April 15 — while Discovery is in orbit — to elaborate on his post-shuttle plans. He created a furor in the aerospace community in February when he killed NASA’s Constellation program, which had been aimed at returning astronauts to the moon. That will mean even more lost jobs for the Kennedy Space Center and NASA’s other hubs for human spaceflight operation.
Launch manager Mike Moses told reporters that even as the shuttle program winds down, the work force remains as loyal and dedicated to the job as ever.
“But I don’t want to take away from the fact that this is a very human space program, not just with the humans flying in the shuttle, but the folks building it and preparing it and getting ready to launch it,” he said.
As excitement builds toward this morning’s launch, “I don’t think there are too many people out there right now at their desks, worried that we’re about to end,” Moses said. “You ask that question on Tuesday, we might get a little different answer. But right now, I think spirits are very high and geared up toward that launch.”
Discovery will spend 13 days in orbit, on its next-to-last flight.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of