The American space agency is ready to approve an exception to the safety rules, and to approve the takeoff with three normal sensors out of four.
Avi Blizovsky
Discovery crew members returned to Florida earlier this week
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The shuttle Discovery may take off today (Tuesday) even if the problem with the sensor that caused the cancellation of the launch on July 13 is not resolved.
The BBC website states that the engineers tried to isolate the fault and managed to find two possible causes for the sensor failure.
The current launch window is open until July 31 but it may also extend to the first week of August.
"We're still dealing with the ghost of the Columbia, so we want to make sure we're doing everything the right way," says Wayne Hale, deputy director of the shuttle program. "We've done every test we can think of," Hale said. "And so far the problem has not repeated itself.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says that he estimates that if the problem does recur during the countdown experiments, it will be possible to fix the problem once and for all.
"What the public wants from NASA is to make the right technical decisions, that we do the right thing, to the maximum that we can, and this is difficult." explained.
"We cannot limit our range of possibilities to things that have gone well so far." said.
The July 13 launch attempt was aborted when one of the four identical sensors that tell the engine to shut down when it runs out of fuel failed a routine pre-launch test. The sensors monitor the amount of liquid hydrogen in the outer tank of the shuttle.
The wiring between sensors 2 and 4 was replaced to try to isolate the fault. If the engineers encounter a problem with one of these two sensors, the engineers will be able to say that they understand the problem enough to allow the launch of the Discovery.
However, if an unexpected malfunction occurs in another sensor, they will have to cancel the launch.
Walla news reported that the American space agency, NASA, which has not yet found a solution to the problem of the fuel valve delaying the launch of the shuttle Discovery, announced today that it is ready to bend its own safety regulations in order to launch the shuttle tomorrow as planned. This will be the first shuttle flight since the disaster of the Columbia shuttle explosion, two and a half years ago.
The AP news agency reported that agency officials said they would be ready to approve a deviation from the rules if the problem resurfaced during refueling. Pete Nikolenko, director of testing at NASA, said that deviations from safety regulations during the launch phase are rare, and he could not recall the last time such a deviation was approved. However, he expressed hope that the sensor that turned out to be so problematic will function properly.
"Personally, I do not believe that we have carried out an extensive measure of correcting problems and analyzing them, in order to better understand what is in front of us", he said. "We certainly expect it to work as planned."
The agency's engineers still don't understand why one of the four hydrogen sensors in the shuttle's large external fuel tank gave a false test result 12 days ago, forcing NASA to delay the launch while the astronauts were already climbing into Discovery. The new launch is scheduled to take place today (Wednesday) at 17:39 Israel time.
The fuel sensors are designed to prevent the main engines from shutting down too early or too late during takeoff in the event of a tank leak or other serious failure. Shutting down the engine at the wrong time could spell disaster - if it happens too soon, it could force an emergency landing that has never been attempted. If too late, the engines could explode and destroy the shuttle.
One of NASA's rules, established after the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1986, states that all four valves must work properly, even though only two are actually required.
Criticism of the decision is heard among the American space community. Randy Avera, an engineer who helped develop the shuttle's test program, said this mindset is reminiscent of the mindset that led to the Challenger disaster.
The shuttle mission
Yigal Fatal, chairman of the Israeli Astronomical Society and director of the astronomy forum at YNET, says that a foreign non-American astronaut is also participating in the current shuttle. This is Suichi Noguchi from the Japanese Space Agency. The participation of the Japanese astronaut in the shuttle crew arouses great interest in Japan. This is another step in the effort of the American space agency, NASA, for international cooperation in the field of shuttle flights in particular and the space sector in general.
Aside from the scientific missions that are planned for the shuttle Discovery, part of its missions will be devoted to safety issues of the shuttle flights that have been suspended for two and a half years. During the flight, various experiments will be carried out, the purpose of which is to test the shuttle's systems, mainly in matters related to maintenance, insulation, preventing the formation of ice on surfaces in the shuttle and resistance to malfunctions, such as the malfunction that caused the failure of Columbia's insulation.
Aside from the shuttle's other scientific missions, it will deliver a cargo of food and regular supplies to the International Space Station, and this after two and a half years in which no American shuttle visited the International Space Station. Also, scientific tasks related to the possibilities of the return of the manned flights to the moon, the closest celestial body to the earth, will be carried out.
Yedan returned to space
For news at the BBC
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