The decision to postpone the launch of the shuttle until at least December 17 was a result of the formation of two large cracks that were discovered in the external fuel tank, and there is concern about the safety of the launch.
The members of the 25th crew of the space station landed safely in Kazakhstan this morning (Friday) at 6:46 am Israel time. The three - Doug Wilcock, Shannon Walker and Soyuz commander Fyodor Yurchikhin left the space station a few hours earlier, thus ending a five and a half month stay on the space station.
Wilcock logged 178 days in space on two missions (including 15 days on mission STS-120). Walker spent 163 days in space, the two spent a combined 161 days as members of the 24th and 25th crews.
Yurchikhin has accumulated 371 days in space to date, serving on the 15th crew for 197 days and on the Space Shuttle mission STS-112 for 11 days.
The station is manned by crew 26 commander Scott Kelly and cosmonauts Alexander Cleary and Oleg Skipuchka. They reviewed the emergency instructions, as part of transferring the station to them. They also continued the scientific activities at the station such as collecting and storing blood samples for research.
Discovery's energy systems were turned off * Fault tests are ongoing
At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space shuttle Discovery's power systems were shut down for the weekend while tests continued. A Discovery launch scheduled for November 1 will not take place until December 17, after shuttle managers determined that additional tests were required.
At the meeting held by the control team for the launch requirements, it was reported that there were two cracks about 7 meters long in a U shape in the aluminum supports called stringers on the external fuel tank of the shuttle. The administrators decided that the analysis and tests required for the safe launch of the shuttle Discovery were not completed. The work will continue next week.
If it is decided to launch on December 17, the launch will take place at 20:51 (03:51 Israel time on December 18).
