Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are on track to move space shuttle Discovery’s from Launch Pad 39A back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) Tuesday night. First motion off the pad still is targeted for 10 p.m. EST.
Technicians have replaced a faulty transducer used with the leveling system on the crawler-transporter, which hauls the shuttle the 3.4 mile distance between the pad and VAB. The faulty transducer delayed Discovery’s rollback, as the move is called, early Tuesday morning. If there are no other issues, Discovery is expected to be securely back inside the VAB by 5 a.m. Wednesday. Once there, technicians will take x-ray scans beneath the foam insulation of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on Discovery’s external fuel tank. They’ll also remove sensors on the external tank from last Friday’s tanking test and reapply foam to those areas. Tuesday afternoon, Space Shuttle Program managers also decided to protect the option of performing known and practiced modifications on some of the stringers, if additional testing and analysis indicates that’s necessary. Managers are expected to decide on Dec. 30 whether modifications are needed.