The third and final shuttle mission of the year 2006 is on its way, every mission depends on the success of its predecessor, we’re just another mission in a line of assembly, as important as the previous ones and as important as the ones of the future. Every mission will be recorded as the historical event as humans head close to finish the International Space Station. ISS is the first step in the direction of exploring the distant worlds humans have always dreamed of. Oh! I am getting a little emotional.
Day, night, dusk, dawn, it just doesn’t matter to NASA. After three successful post-Columbia shuttle missions, all starting during the day, NASA recently decided that it is ready to resume launching at night. Discovery will be the first space shuttle to be launched at night since the destruction of shuttle Columbia in 2003.
NASA is compelled by a self-created computer glitch to bring the next shuttle flight home by Dec. 31 and will attempt to launch the mission next Thursday. NASA wants Discovery back from its 12-day mission by New Year’s Eve because shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. NASA needs to fly 14 shuttle flights by 2010 to complete assembly of the half-built $100 billion space station.
NASA needs to launch at night so it can maintain the busy flight schedule to complete the space station by 2010, when the shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired. During the 12-day mission, Discovery’s crew will deliver a small metal truss segment to extend the space station’s structural backbone, and the astronauts will rewire the station’s electrical and cooling systems.
Via: Topix
