There’s still a very good chance that Discovery will be launched tomorrow at 12:22 am following five launch pad tests Wednesday.
The fuel valve, which signaled a failure to close while the external fuel tank was being filled for launch late Tuesday, led to a 48-hour postponement to give engineers time to diagnose the problem.
The first launch attempt – scheduled early Tuesday – was postponed because of bad weather, the valve worked fine that time.
According to an online status report from NASA released Wednesday, the valve “opened and closed when commanded five different times with no issues.”
“Teams are now performing a pressure test of the propulsion system, and recording the leak rate of small amounts of liquid hydrogen,” the status report said.
The decision whether to continue with the launching on Friday will be done later today.
Keep those fingers crossed guys! 🙂
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32575867/ns/technology_and_science-space/
