Summary: Two steps forward, one giant step backwards. I’m Benjamin Higginbotham and this is your SpacePod for December 14th, 2010. It’s now official. NASA will be rolling back Space Shuttle Discovery to the Vehicle Assembly Building. But before NASA does that, engineers will conduct taking tests at the pad no earlier than this Friday. During the tanking tests, half a million pounds of super cooled liquid hydrogen and oxygen will be loaded in to the iconic orange external tank. NASA will not only be filling the tanks, but also keeping the fuel there in a faux countdown designed to simulate launch day. Much like an actual shuttle countdown there will be a series of holds giving NASA crew time to check the tank, as well as full pressurization as the clock nears T-0. When the tanking is done engineers will roll Discovery back to the VAB for additional X-Ray inspections on the back of the external tank. If no additional problems are found then Discovery will re-roll back to the launch pad around January 14th for the next launch window of February 3rd through the 10th. Since its first flight in 1984, Space Shuttle Discovery has been rolled back to the VAB 5 times. The first being after a pad abort on STS-41D in 1984, then again after cracks were found on lug hinges for STS-39 in 1991. Again after woodpeckers drilled around 195 holes in the external tank foam for STS-70 in 1995. Once more for foam insulation problem in 1999 for STS-96 and again in 2005 for STS-114 in order to get a new external tank in preparation to return to flight. This will be the 6th time and potentially final time Discovery has had to roll back in what will be it’s 27 year history. Once Discovery is ready for launch there will be hundreds of cameras capturing ascent. Recently the 45 minute long video ‘Ascent’ has been made available on YouTube, created and narrated by NASA engineer Matt Melles and Kevin Burke. This is some of the most amazing space imagery and geekery you’re going to see for a long while! Here’s just a small sample, but you really should check out the entire 45 minute clip! On the lighter side, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has completed assembly of the oxidizer turbopump on the all new J-2X rocket engine. The turbopump is one of the most important and difficult parts to make in a rocket engine, so this is a great step forward for J-2X. This new rocket engine will be used in upper stage of NASA’s upcoming... Lets end this SpacePod on some New Space News, shall we? It sounds like Orbital Sciences and Virgin Galactic may be teaming up! Orbital is looking to put 4 humans in to orbit around the year 2015 or so, in a bid to win NASAs Commercial Crew Development 2 contract. Orbitals new spacecraft would launch atop the time tested Atlas 5 rocket carrying 3 astronauts and one paying space tourist to the International Space Station. So where does Virgin Galactic fit in all this? Virgin would market the commercial rides, conduct drop tests using their WhiteKnight 2 vehicle and offer transport services for the craft should there be an in-flight abort. Interesting bed fellows as Virgin is also expected to announce their intentions to go after the NASA contract later this week. No official word on that yet, but with all this competition it sounds like your chances of going to space keep getting better and better and better!
