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July 13, 2005
Discovery is still go for launch!
It's nearly T-minus 6 hours and the shuttle is still go for launch! Apparently the damage from the falling window cover was small and fixed in short order. Fueling of the main tank has begun, and lift off is still timed for 3:51 pm Eastern US time. While the last-minute hiccup was surely unwelcome to NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, he is intimately familiar with the complexity of the space systems. In fact, at the 'go for flight' news conference that immediately preceded the announcement of the window cover damage, Griffin presciently noted: "Can there be something that we don't know about that can bite us? Yeah. This is a very tough business."
The biggest risk now seems to spring from weather -- probability of a scrub due to thunderstorms is now up to 40% -- welcome to Florida in the summer!
Posted by george_whitesides at July 13, 2005 09:28 AM
