[curiousuburb]

Liftoff of Discovery and the seven-member crew on the STS-131 mission to the International Space Station is set for 6:21 a.m. EDT (10:21 GMT) on April 5.

Originally Posted by Spaceflightnow.com Liftoff is targeted for 6:21:23 a.m. Monday, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries launch complex 39A into the plane of the International Space Station's orbit. Kathy Winters, the shuttle weather officer, said the only concern is a chance of fog. But overall, the forecast for Monday and Tuesday calls for an 80 percent chance of acceptable conditions. "Weather is looking very good right now at KSC," she said. "We've been experiencing some really nice weather, it's going to continue into launch day. The only concern we do have is for fog to form the morning of launch. "Right now, we're forecasting a wind from the east. It's very light, though, and if it happens to turn around and give us a land breeze, the temperatures could drop enough to saturation and cause some fog in the area. We have a four-mile visibility constraint for return-to-launch-site weather. So that's our primary concern for launch and right now, we're going with a 20 percent chance of that occurring."

And as a 'twilight' launch, visibility should be unique if you're on the Eastern seaboard of the USA.

Originally Posted by Space.com And this upcoming launch could also be the very first one where a shuttle will take a track parallel to the Atlantic seaboard while much of the East Coast is experiencing morning twilight conditions. On those occasions when a shuttle has been launched in the dark of night, its visibility was due primarily to the bright yellow-orange glow of its main rocket engines. But should the upcoming launch of Discovery – its next-to-last planned mission – go off on schedule next Monday morning, its visibility might be enhanced by sunlight reflecting off both the orbiter and its orange external fuel tank; a rather unique occurrence! [Click chart for source story]

While in theory they could add another flight using the 'contingency rescue stack', Charlie Bolden seems to think there won't be any extension... which means after this there will be only three more missions.

I'm trying to find a way to get to FL to watch one of them in person, but travel and timing will be challenging given the chance of a scrub borking the booking.

Until then, it's NASA TV for me.

Go Discovery!

[Capella]

Woo, I have to get up at 6AM that morning anyway. Go shuttle, no scrub! I'm glad some of the non-Floridians might get to see it too

[Maciej]

When are the next launches scheduled after that, anything in the beginning of May?

[Capella]

Seen the shuttle go off. Shuttle is fine so far. Have two dreadful pictures and video which is pretty much just one bright spot streaking across the sky, willing to upload later, but off to drive to college orientation now.

Sad we won't see another one of these night launches, because they're pretty fantastic. My small dot of light pictures are nothing compared to how it really lights up the sky here. It was beautiful.

Please be okay, shuttle.

[Capella]

Originally Posted by Maciej When are the next launches scheduled after that, anything in the beginning of May?

Atlantis is May 14- not quite beginning, sorry- Endeavor is July 29, Discovery is Sep 16.

[Maciej]

Originally Posted by Capella Atlantis is May 14- not quite beginning, sorry- Endeavor is July 29, Discovery is Sep 16.

Dangit! I'm going to be in Key Largo the 30th through the 3rd, would have liked to see some space action.

[PKIDelirium]

http://twitpic.com/1dwswl



BTW, anyone who's not following Astro_Soichi on Twitter is missing out. Daily photo updates.

[curiousuburb]

You can just see Discovery's wonky Ku-band antenna peeking over the Starboard payload bay door/radiator in that pic.

See also here


Poor datarate due to Ku dropout isn't an issue when they're using the ISS downlink, but it's almost a textbook case for ad-hoc networking.

In fact, STS-132 (Atlantis - May 14 provisionally) is also taking a backup Ku antenna for ISS. Much bigger.

[PKIDelirium]

Landing coming up early this morning, hopefully.

Approach paths, for any one in range. I'm gonna wake up when they do the de-orbit for the first attempt, and if they're going for it, I'll be going outside and looking Southwest. Pretty close to Cincinnati at high altitude.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttl...31/status.html

Orbit 237 Kennedy Space Center http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...corbit237a.jpg
Orbit 238 Edwards Air Force Base http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...worbit238a.jpg
Orbit 238 Kennedy Space Center http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...corbit238a.jpg
Orbit 239 Edwards Air Force Base http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...worbit239a.jpg
Orbit 240 Edwards Air Force Base http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...worbit240a.jpg

ORBIT...SITE..DEORBIT.......LANDING

Tuesday

237.....KSC...06:28:50 AM...07:34:08 AM
238.....EDW...07:56:29 AM...09:01:17 AM
........KSC...08:02:59 AM...09:08:37 AM
239.....EDW...09:30:59 AM...10:35:57 AM
240.....EDW...11:05:39 AM...12:11:06 AM