Go Discovery!
Thursday, February 24th, 2011 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tourmalineDiscovery is now in orbit - and the launch decision went right down to the line, even more so than usual. The usual routine is to poll all the relevant people to give a Go or No Go for launch. All was Go, except for Range - a safety watch over the shuttle during ascent - who were having problems with their central computer system. The Go/No Go poll happens just before coming out of the T-9 hold, but it was agreed to hold at T-5 minutes to give them a bit more time. They got their computer system sorted with about two seconds to spare, and the count resumed, with Discovery launching at the end of her launch window.
So she finally got into space, but after stringing out the drama all the way. Firstly, the initial mission delays and the problem with cracked foam on the external tank, then Tim Kopra's bicycle accident and the late substitution of him with Steve Bowen (first astronaut ever to fly successive missions, & only with the medical bumping of Ken Mattingly from Apollo 13 has an astronaut been replaced closer to launch). And then, in the midst of the most perfect launch conditions I've seen, it almost didn't happen. And even though it won't happen again with this orbiter, I'm so thrilled that it did.
So she finally got into space, but after stringing out the drama all the way. Firstly, the initial mission delays and the problem with cracked foam on the external tank, then Tim Kopra's bicycle accident and the late substitution of him with Steve Bowen (first astronaut ever to fly successive missions, & only with the medical bumping of Ken Mattingly from Apollo 13 has an astronaut been replaced closer to launch). And then, in the midst of the most perfect launch conditions I've seen, it almost didn't happen. And even though it won't happen again with this orbiter, I'm so thrilled that it did.
