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Tight Security Fails To Keep Rain From Scrubbing Endeavour
Tight security around the Kennedy Space Center here Tuesday couldn't keep out the rain, which forced a third delay in the launch of the US space shuttle Endeavour. "The space shuttle cannot fly through precipitation," said Bruce Buckingham, a spokesman for the US space agency NASA. The shuttle's launch, originally planned for November 29, has been delayed twice before, and is now scheduled to take place at 5:19pm EST Wednesday, NASA officials said. Tight security surrounded the 57,000-hectare (141,000-acre) space center here as the shuttle awaited its rescheduled launch date. Officials ordered all air traffic within a 55-kilometer (34-mile) radius of the launch pad to be frozen, while F-15 Eagles and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters have been deployed nearby. A new warning Monday of possible terrorism, the third of its kind in the wake of the September 11 attacks, has not altered the course of security precautions here, which could go as far as destroying any aircraft that threatens the shuttle and its crew, said Air Force Colonel Sam Dick, who handles security for the space center. "Our purpose is to keep them from reaching a point where decisions have to be made that would be adverse," Dick said. On Tuesday, an F-16 jet intercepted a helicopter flying inside the no-fly zone over the space center, but "we don't believe it was malicious," he said. A sheriff's helicopter escorted it to the Merritt Island Airport, Dick said. NASA gave the green light for Tuesday's attempted launch after reviewing the results of a spacewalk late Monday in which Russians Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin removed a "foreign object" that had slipped between a Russian cargo ship and one of the International Space Station's modules. Progress M1-7, launched last week, failed to dock as planned Wednesday because its docking screws and electrical contacts could not properly fit within their allotted slots. The cargo ship was able to dock less than 15 minutes after an obstructive three-meter (nine-foot) plastic joint was cleared away. Endeavour is scheduled to bring the fourth long-term crew -- Russian commander Yuri Onufrienko and Americans Carl Walz and Dan Bursch -- to the station and will return December 15 with the current crew members, who have been on the station since August. The shuttle will also carry the Italian Raffaello module, laden with 3.5 tonnes of equipment, food, supplies and materials for scientific experiments. Among the experiments being carried into space aboard the shuttle is Starshine 2, an atmospheric observation satellite designed by students. "Starshine looks very much like a disco ball," with hundreds of polished mirrors on its globular surface, according to Endeavour mission specialist Daniel Tani. Starshine 2 will be the third satellite of Project Starshine -- the Student Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite for Heuristic International Networking Experiment -- to be deployed. More than 25,000 students from 26 countries will track Starshine 2 as it orbits Earth for eight months at an altitude of 387 kilometers (240 miles), using the information they collect to calculate the density of the Earth's upper atmosphere. Endeavour will be the first US space shuttle launched since attacks September 11 when hijacked airliners left around 3,700 people dead and missing in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The shuttle will carry several thousand US flags to honor those killed. NASA intends to distribute the flags to the families of those killed after the shuttle returns.
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Shuttle Launch Delayed Due To Progress Docking Problem
KSC - Nov 29, 2001Shuttle launch managers meeting Thursday morning have decided to delay today's launch to enable more information to be gathered on what is causing the Progress supply ship to show an incomplete hard dock. NASA is currently aiming for a Friday launch at a similar time of around 7.18 EST. |
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