With a dress rehearsal countdown behind them, the astronauts of STS-128 will survey the payload bay of space shuttle Discovery this afternoon at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before heading back to their training base at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The crew of seven astronauts will come back to Kennedy in the days prior to Discovery’s launch on a mission to outfit the International Space Station with essential equipment and racks for science experiments.
Shuttle management is evaluating options and analyzing data related to the foam insulation on the ice frost ramp area on Discovery’s external fuel tank. The ice frost ramps being evaluated are brackets on the outside of the upper part of the external tank. The topic will be thoroughly considered at the shuttle program’s flight readiness review meeting Tuesday and Wednesday. In the meantime, managers are telling teams to continuing working toward Discovery’s targeted Aug. 25 launch.