07 July 2011

Thunder and lightening

With just 45 minutes to go before the planned roll back of the launch tower currently encapsulating Atlantis, mission managers and weather experts are still deciding if they should proceed.

The KSC site was doused in torrential rain with thunder and lightening around midday and safety rules do not permit tower roll back if there are electric storms in the vicinity.

They have between six and seven hours leeway in the schedule to perform the manoeuvre if they are to keep on course for a launch attempt tomorrow morning.

In NASA-speak we are still in a ‘Phase 2 Lightening Alert’ which means everyone is confined to buildings and shouldn't be walking out in the open.

at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Heat, wealth and denial

  The Earth is on fire – literally and politically. From southern Europe to the American West, from South Asia to the UK, we are witnessin...

  • Light in the Darkness
    Flooded Fields (Liz Kelleher). THERE is something intrinsically moody and yet honestly beautiful at the same time in the evocative sky and l...
  • Feminism at the final frontier
    There’s been no shortage of opinion – and vitriol – surrounding Blue Origin’s recent suborbital spaceflight, which carried an all-female civ...
  • Writing on the edge of reality
    As a journalist covering the global space sector, I’ve spent years reporting from the 'edge of reality' – where science meets imagin...