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Endeavour Leaves Space Station a Day Early to Avoid Hurricane Dean
Sunday, August 19, 2007
HOUSTON - Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the international space
station a day early on Sunday, as NASA kept a wary eye on Hurricane Dean.
Space agency managers worried that the storm would move toward Houston and
force them to evacuate to a smaller-staffed makeshift control center at Cape
Canaveral, Fla. The Endeavour crew prepared to land on Tuesday as a
precaution.
"Endeavour departed," space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin said as
ringing bells heralded the shuttle's parting, a tradition borrowed from the
Navy.
Click here for NASA's live video feed:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/live_tv.html
"Thanks for everything, Scott and Endeavour crew," station resident Clay
Anderson said to shuttle commander Scott Kelly. "Godspeed."
"We couldn't have gotten everything accomplished without you guys," Kelly
replied. "We look forward to seeing you back on planet Earth."
The shuttle crew, which includes teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, had been
at the orbiting outpost since Aug. 10. In that time, they attached a new
truss segment to the station, delivered cargo and replaced a failed
gyroscope, which controls the station's orientation.
They have had to compress their schedule to get ready for the early
undocking. Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe's backup on the tragic 1986
Challenger mission, was scheduled to talk to students in Massachusetts on
Sunday but that chat was canceled.
A spacewalk on Saturday was shortened so the astronauts could wrap up their
work at the station. During that jaunt, the spacewalkers saw the eye of the
enormous hurricane swirling in the Caribbean and expressed their amazement
at the sight.
The astronauts also skipped flying around the station after undocking to
take pictures of the complex, an exercise NASA likes crews to do if the
schedule and fuel supply permit.
Although it was uncertain whether Dean, a Category 4 storm, might strike the
Texas coastline later this week, NASA managers said it would be
irresponsible not to cut the mission short, especially since most of the
tasks had been completed.
"I would defy just about anybody to tell me at this point that there's zero
or even extremely low probability or possibility that the storm is going to
come here," said LeRoy Cain.
NASA is ready to rush a skeleton crew of flight controllers to Cape
Canaveral, but only if the shuttle cannot land Tuesday for some reason and
the hurricane is bearing down on Houston and threatening the city for
several days, Cain said.
"That's a fairly, I hope, unlikely scenario simply because all those things
have to line up," he said.
In 26 years of space shuttle flight, NASA never has had to call up an
emergency Mission Control, although it has been practiced.
NASA's hurricane deliberations followed a decision to forgo shuttle repairs.
Mission managers concluded earlier this week that a deep gouge on
Endeavour's belly posed no Columbia-like threat to the seven crew members
during re-entry and also would not lead to lengthy postflight shuttle
repairs.
For several days, managers had considered sending two astronauts out with
black protective paint and untested goo to patch the 3 1/2-inch-long,
2-inch-wide gouge that dug all the way through the thermal tiles.
The gouge was caused by debris that broke off a bracket on Endeavour's
external fuel tank during liftoff Aug. 8. Engineers still do not know
whether it was foam insulation, ice or a combination of both. In any case,
NASA said it will not launch another shuttle until the longtime troublesome
brackets are fixed.
Endeavour Leaves Space Station a Day Early to Avoid Hurricane Dean
Sunday, August 19, 2007
HOUSTON - Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the international space
station a day early on Sunday, as NASA kept a wary eye on Hurricane Dean.
Space agency managers worried that the storm would move toward Houston and
force them to evacuate to a smaller-staffed makeshift control center at Cape
Canaveral, Fla. The Endeavour crew prepared to land on Tuesday as a
precaution.
"Endeavour departed," space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin said as
ringing bells heralded the shuttle's parting, a tradition borrowed from the
Navy.
Click here for NASA's live video feed:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/live_tv.html
"Thanks for everything, Scott and Endeavour crew," station resident Clay
Anderson said to shuttle commander Scott Kelly. "Godspeed."
"We couldn't have gotten everything accomplished without you guys," Kelly
replied. "We look forward to seeing you back on planet Earth."
The shuttle crew, which includes teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, had been
at the orbiting outpost since Aug. 10. In that time, they attached a new
truss segment to the station, delivered cargo and replaced a failed
gyroscope, which controls the station's orientation.
They have had to compress their schedule to get ready for the early
undocking. Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe's backup on the tragic 1986
Challenger mission, was scheduled to talk to students in Massachusetts on
Sunday but that chat was canceled.
A spacewalk on Saturday was shortened so the astronauts could wrap up their
work at the station. During that jaunt, the spacewalkers saw the eye of the
enormous hurricane swirling in the Caribbean and expressed their amazement
at the sight.
The astronauts also skipped flying around the station after undocking to
take pictures of the complex, an exercise NASA likes crews to do if the
schedule and fuel supply permit.
Although it was uncertain whether Dean, a Category 4 storm, might strike the
Texas coastline later this week, NASA managers said it would be
irresponsible not to cut the mission short, especially since most of the
tasks had been completed.
"I would defy just about anybody to tell me at this point that there's zero
or even extremely low probability or possibility that the storm is going to
come here," said LeRoy Cain.
NASA is ready to rush a skeleton crew of flight controllers to Cape
Canaveral, but only if the shuttle cannot land Tuesday for some reason and
the hurricane is bearing down on Houston and threatening the city for
several days, Cain said.
"That's a fairly, I hope, unlikely scenario simply because all those things
have to line up," he said.
In 26 years of space shuttle flight, NASA never has had to call up an
emergency Mission Control, although it has been practiced.
NASA's hurricane deliberations followed a decision to forgo shuttle repairs.
Mission managers concluded earlier this week that a deep gouge on
Endeavour's belly posed no Columbia-like threat to the seven crew members
during re-entry and also would not lead to lengthy postflight shuttle
repairs.
For several days, managers had considered sending two astronauts out with
black protective paint and untested goo to patch the 3 1/2-inch-long,
2-inch-wide gouge that dug all the way through the thermal tiles.
The gouge was caused by debris that broke off a bracket on Endeavour's
external fuel tank during liftoff Aug. 8. Engineers still do not know
whether it was foam insulation, ice or a combination of both. In any case,
NASA said it will not launch another shuttle until the longtime troublesome
brackets are fixed.
