AfterTek

The shuttle Discovery was hauled to launch pad 39B today for work to ready the ship for blastoff Dec. 7 on a critical space station assembly and re-wiring mission. NASA managers considered moving launch up an additional day, to Dec. 6, but ruled that out today based on time needed to complete crew training and to develop software intended to prevent damage to the station’s new solar arrays.The software in question is designed to constantly monitor the positions of the sun-tracking arrays and warn flight controllers of possible rocket plume contamination or excessive structural loads, Sources said the new monitoring software – and the training needed to use it – likely cannot be formally certified before Discovery’s current December launch window closes.

Instead, engineers hope to have a workable system in place by Dec. 7, although details about what needs to be done are not yet clear.

Mounted atop a powerful crawler-transporter, Discovery and its mobile launch platform began the 4.2-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad at 12:29 a.m. The MLP was “hard down” at the pad by 9:03 a.m.

Discovery’s crew – commander Mark Polansky, pilot William Oefelein, Nicholas Patrick, Robert Curbeam, European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, Joan Higginbotham and Sunita Williams – plans to fly to the Kennedy Space Center next week to review emergency procedures and participate in a dress rehearsal countdown Thursday.

A two-day flight readiness review to assess Discovery’s processing is scheduled for Nov. 28-29. If no problems develop, launch will be targeted for no earlier than Dec. 7. The launch window that day opens at 9:30:42 p.m. and closes at 9:40:42 p.m. Liftoff will be targeted for the middle of the window, at 9:35:42 p.m.

The goal of the flight is to attach a short spacer segment to the station’s solar array truss and to carry out a complex two-spacewalk re-wiring job to switch the station over from interim power to its permanent electrical system. That change over, which requires extensive realtime ground commanding and system power cycling during ongoing spacewalks, makes Discovery’s flight the most complex station assembly mission yet attempted.