Technicians on Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are working on the connections between space shuttle Discovery and its external fuel tank today.
They also are installing the external tank camera, which will be used to take images of the tank as it falls away from the shuttle after main engine cutoff and of the shuttle as flies into space. The camera looks for potential sources of debris that may come off the tank.
Yesterday, the ordnance to disconnect the external tank’s liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen umbilicals, or hoses, from Discovery after it reaches orbit were installed.
STS-131 Commander Alan Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr., and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger and Rick Mastracchio are making training runs in NASA’s Shuttle Training Aircraft over California’s Mojave Desert.
Discovery’s rollout to the launch pad still is on track for Tuesday, March 2, with first motion beginning at 12:01 a.m. EST.