May 23, 2005 Melissa Mathews Headquarters, Washington (Phone: 202/358-1272) Jessica Rye Kennedy Space Center, Fla. (Phone: 321/867-2468) STATUS REPORT: S05-020 NASA'S SPACE SHUTTLE PROCESSING STATUS REPORT NASA's Space Shuttle fleet is housed and processed at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla. Mission: STS-114 - 17th ISS Flight (LF1) - Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Vehicle: Discovery (OV-103) Location: Launch Pad 39B Launch Date: Launch Planning Window July 13 - 31, 2005 Launch Pad: 39B Crew: Collins, Kelly, Noguchi, Robinson, Thomas, Lawrence and Camarda Inclination/Orbit Altitude: 51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles Technicians are preparing to roll Space Shuttle Discovery from the launch pad to the Vehicle Assembly Building, now scheduled for early morning on Thursday, May 26. Once there, orbiter Discovery will be demated, or removed, from its External Tank (ET) and lowered into the transfer aisle. On or about June 7, Discovery will be lifted and attached to its new ET and Solid Rocket Boosters. Discovery is expected to be rolled back out to the pad in mid-June. Engineers are also investigating part of Discovery's main landing gear door, after a small crack was found last week in a retract link assembly on the right-hand main landing gear on orbiter Atlantis in Orbiter Processing Facility bay 1. The Atlantis assembly was removed and will be replaced with a spare. Engineers have looked at the closeout photos of the link assembly on Discovery. The initial review indicates the link assembly does not appear to have any cracks. To ensure there are no cracks in the assemblies, technicians will enter Discovery's payload bay and perform borescope inspections of the area, an inspection that can only be accomplished at the pad. This additional work does not impact the launch planning window of July 13-31. Following the inspections, Discovery will undergo hot-fire tests of its Auxiliary Power Units, currently scheduled for Wednesday. Previous Space Shuttle processing status reports are available on the Internet. Visit: http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight -end- To subscribe to the list, send a message to: ksc-subscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov To remove your address from the list, send a message to: ksc-unsubscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov
