Barring Problems, Atlantis Lifts Off Oct. 10, Endeavour Slated For Nov. 12 Blast-Off
After Atlantis, Endeavour Go Aloft, Only Nine Shuttle Missions To Launch Before Shuttle Fleet Retires In 2010
Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived at Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, where it will be poised to act as a life raft if problems beset Space Shuttle Atlantis, which now is poised nearby on Launch Pad 39A for a planned repair and refurbishment mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
If Atlantis encounters no problems, Endeavour then will move to Pad 39A for a Nov. 12 launch on a mission to deliver a multi-purpose logistics module to the International Space Station.
After the Atlantis and Endeavour launches, only nine space shuttle missions will remain before NASA in 2010 is compelled by a Bush administration order to retire the shuttle fleet. Retiring the shuttles will save money to be channeled instead into developing the next generation Orion-Ares space capsule and rocket that will replace the shuttle fleet.
However, Orion-Ares won’t reach its first manned flight until 2015, meaning the United States — so far the only nation to place men on the moon — won’t even be able to transport one astronaut to low Earth orbit for half a decade.
Instead, NASA would have to pay Russia to transport U.S. astronauts to the space station on Soyuz spacecraft. But the existing contract to buy Soyuz flights is about to expire, so NASA would have to obtain permission from Congress to buy Soyuz missions in 2012 and beyond, and lawmakers in Congress are enraged by the Russian invasion of Georgia, making it unlikely NASA will gain lawmakers’ permission to pay Russia gigantic sums for space transport.
That may mean NASA will have to wait until President Bush leaves office in January, ending an eight-year run in the White House, to see whether the next president will reverse Bush’s policy and permit continued space shuttle flights. NASA now is studying how to cope with such a potential order.
But for now, NASA is celebrating the fact that with the rollout of Endeavour, it will be the first time two shuttles have stood poised simultaneously on launch pads since July 2001, well before the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Endeavour completed the 4.2-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39B on at 6:59 p.m. ET Friday
Endeavour had left the VAB at 11:15 p.m. Thursday, traveling at less than 1 mph atop a massive crawler-transporter.
The reason Endeavour is on Pad 39B, poised to launch, is that Atlantis will face a special risk in its Hubble telescope refurbishment mission.
When a shuttle goes to the space station, if the shuttle is damaged during ascent or faces other problems, it can use the station as a life raft, just as if there is a problem on the space station, its crew can use a Soyuz docked to the station as a life raft.
But since Atlantis is going to Hubble, there will be no rescue vehicle at hand if Atlantis encounters problems. Therefore, Endeavour will be poised to race to the rescue if Atlantis and its crew require.