Discovery’s false starts

What was for November was nothing but chaos. But as sensors filled the ship’s top with outside fuel tank with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, they noticed a hydrogen exhaust that forced them to have a “NO GO!”

When smart people returned to the launch site after the gas had been taken out to look at the tank, they found chips on the tank’s outer shell.

Managers switched to toss the satellite back to the raging Vehicle Assembly Building, where they found more chipped stringers

Repairs went well, but managers still withheld the mission until they were totally faithful both that they knew the reasons for the stringer chips and that the repairs had taken care of that problem.

Detectives searched for the problem to stringers that were powerful to take on the stress that fueling imparts to the tank, but not powerful enough to take on that stress when coupled with stress unknowing added during building.

Now, “the hardware is ready to fly,” says Michael Moses.

“We’ve had some really great weather coming all the way up to launch,” says Kathy Winters. Some shunned rain may pop up during the noon close enough to the site to proclaim yet another wait. But she gives that a 20% chance of happening.

Her forecast? “Good payload, good launch,” she says.