Discovery is ‘GO’ for Monday launch

by Steve Ragan - Apr 2 2010, 19:05

At 3:00 a.m. EST this morning, the official clock for STS-131 started at T-43 hours, and provided all goes according to plan, Discovery and its seven member crew will head to the International Space Station at 6:21 a.m. on April 5.

During Friday morning’s countdown status briefing, NASA Test Director Steve Payne said that NASA was “eager to get Discovery flying on Monday morning.” According to NASA, there is a 20-percent chance of a “No-Go” on launch day, due the possibility of early morning fog. In the event a 24-hour turnaround is needed, the weather would have similar conditions.

STS-131 is the 33rd shuttle mission to the International Space Station. There are three spacewalks planned for this trip, one to replace an ammonia tank assembly, one to retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior, and another to switch out a rate gyro assembly. In addition to the outside work, STS-131 is also delivering a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks for the laboratories aboard the station.

While there is an 80-percent chance that STS-131 will launch as expected on Monday, there is still some gloomy news; after this launch, only three more shuttle missions remain.

“Every one of the remaining missions is an important mission for us. Because we only have a few left, we have to get everything that we're going to get uphill on these next few missions,” commented Payne.

“The team out here really loves launching space shuttles. So we're enjoying everything we can, while we've got it.”

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