It's a beautiful day

Thirty years and 135 missions after its debut, NASA got down to the business of launching a Space Shuttle for the final time this morning.

It was a privilege to be amongst the 1,350 media representatives from around the world who had descended en masse - many to witness a launch for the first time - for this history-making occasion.

My day started with a 4.30 am wake up call, which was at exactly the same time the four astronauts were woken in their quarters at KSC for breakfast and to begin their preparations.

It was still dark and the air heavy and humid as I started the 35 minute drive from downtown Cocoa Beach towards the space centre.

Traffic was already heavy and vehicles of all shapes and sizes were beginning to congregate on the roadsides to reserve distant views across the Banana River to the launch site for their bleary-eyed occupants. With up to a million visitors expected, many had ‘camped’ overnight to reserve their spot.

As well as the normal security gate a second advance checkpoint had been instigated on the approach to the KSC perimeter and by 6 am cars were backing up in both lanes, cop cars and trucks parked alongside adding to a sense of occasion with their blue flashing lights cutting through the dark.

There had already been a few spits of rain as the first light of dawn began appearing through a crack in the dark overnight clouds - and with it came a glimmer of hope that it might just clear enough in a few hours’ time to get Atlantis off the pad.

For much of the week, and particularly with yesterday’s torrential rain and thunderstorms, a launch had been thought highly unlikely today with only a 30 percent chance of the weather being acceptable.

I arrived at the press site in the nick of time for another security check, this time with an army trained sniffer dog, as four NASA coaches lined up to take a elite group of mainly photographers to witness the traditional crew walkout.

We had less than an hour to wait behind a barrier for the astronauts, clad in their distinctive orange flight suits, to make their brief appearance. Many of the regular photographers position small step ladders to get an elevated view of the heads of others.

The photographers are joined by other guests and onlookers as the time for walkout draws nearer and the sense of excitement and anticipation is heightened when a military helicopter begins circling overhead.

Word comes that the astronauts are in the elevator and then a huge cheer goes up as the four - Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim appear from behind the silver Astrobus. They wave and pose before climbing onboard for the 15 minute journey to Pad 39A.

The crowd begins to disperse and I glimpse a familiar face - Nichelle Nichols, known to millions around the world as ‘Uhura’, the communications officer on Enterprise in the original Star Trek series.

With three hours to go before launch we head back to the press site. Overhead the cloud ceiling seems a little higher than before and some small breaks have appeared here and there.

Despite the previous day’s dire predictions maybe it had been a good call to proceed with the overnight tanking of Atlantis. The Florida weather can be as fickle as anywhere.

Tears in the rain

Torrential rain, thunder and lightening made for an atrocious day at Kennedy Space Center today. Rain doused the Space Shuttle orbiter and two lightning bolts struck on or nearby the launch pad.

Officials said a preliminary assessment found no major problems or systems affected and while additional data reviews were planned, engineers did not expect to need any time-consuming system re-tests.

Forecasters predicted a 70 percent chance of stormy weather triggering a launch delay tomorrow, though the forecast improves slightly to 60 percent ‘no go’ Saturday and then to 40 percent on Sunday.

"Weather is not looking good for launch," shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters told reporters during a morning briefing.

"As you can see outside, the clouds have rolled in, we're starting to see some showers. We even had a thunderstorm show up this morning. So we are expecting more of this for the next couple of days."

The appalling conditions didn’t prevent NASA going ahead with the retraction of the Rotating Service Structure protecting Atlantis on launch pad 39A. It began rolling back at 2:38 pm, about 30 minutes later than planned.

Rain was pounding KSC at the time and a couple of hundred media photographers, including myself, were drenched as we waited in the open for security checks before being bused out to the launch pad to see the Shuttle.

With temperatures in the mid-80s Fahrenheit it was steamy and humid as we viewed Atlantis from the crawler-way which leads up to the launch pad. As well as the media the mosquitos were out in force.

A three hour tanking operation to fill the giant external tank with fuel was scheduled to begin at 2 am Friday morning after an assessment of the weather conditions by mission managers.

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.

Storm clouds brew

A hole may need to open in the clouds at just the right time for Atlantis to fly on the final Shuttle mission tomorrow morning.

At Wednesday’s pre-launch briefing to the media NASA managers said the weather forecast had worsened overnight to a 70 percent chance of stormy conditions that would postpone the planned 11:26 am (16:26 BST) launch.

But in the past Space Shuttles have blasted off from Kennedy Space Center with much worse odds. "It could be pouring rain everywhere in the county, and if we get that hole in the right spot at the right time, we can go," said Mike Moses, NASA’s launch integration manager.

He described Atlantis as being in "fantastic shape" for launch as the so far trouble-free countdown continued with teams loading chemical reactants into Atlantis’ power-producing fuel cell system.

Three orbiter fuel cells will generate electricity for Atlantis and its four person crew during the 12 day mission to stock the International Space Station with food and spare parts.

At 2 pm today, crews plan to swing open the rotating gantry at launch pad 39A to reveal Atlantis, poised for the Shuttle programme’s 135th launch in 30 years.

Fuelling of the craft’s 15-story external tank should then begin about 12 hours later — assuming managers give the go-ahead after a weather briefing at 1:30 am Friday morning.

"I only know of one way to make it a 100 percent no-go forecast, and that’s to not put propellant in the tank," said Moses.

If the weather doesn’t cooperate Friday, the outlook improves slightly Saturday and Sunday.
After that, NASA plans to pause until at least July 16 to let the Air Force launch a satellite from Cape Canaveral — but if it comes to the crunch the two parties might negotiate freeing up most of next week for Atlantis.

But launch director Mike Leinbach said his teams weren’t hoping for delays. "Friday is game day for us, so we don’t want to wait until Saturday," he said. "We want to play the game Friday."

Also playing on managers' minds are the huge crowds expected on Florida’s Space Coast to view the final ascent — and the impact that mass of people could have on launch operations.

Local police expect half-to-three-quarters of a million people travelling to the area and, because of the heavy traffic that would be generated, Leinbach is reserving the option to skip a Saturday launch try out of concern the launch team could not get home and make it back to the spaceport in time for a 24 hour turnaround.

Weather officer Kathy Winters said she expected conditions to improve over the weekend, with a 40 percent chance of good weather on Saturday and a 60 percent chance Sunday.

The final countdown

There could hardly be a more appropriate soundtrack to events at Kennedy Space Center this week. ‘The Final Countdown’, a rock song originally released by the Swedish band ‘Europe’ in 1986, reached number one in 25 countries, including the UK. In the United States the song peaked at number eight.

The clock has been ticking for the Space Shuttle programme for some years now but yesterday the last ever countdown began in earnest when the launch clock at Kennedy Space Center — the giant digital display familiar to TV viewers the world over — began counting down from 43 hours. When it reaches zero, Atlantis will be on its way.

But during a countdown the time on the clock does not translate to actual time — considerably more than 43 hours will elapse between countdown and liftoff. In reality some 70 hours separate the start-up of the countdown clock at 1:00 pm yesterday and the planned launch of the Shuttle at 11:26 this Friday.

The reason for the difference in timekeeping is a series of planned ‘holds’ — built-in pauses that allow launch managers to take stock of the mission's status and respond to changing conditions.

In all, a Shuttle launch countdown contains seven holds, which take place when the countdown clock reads 27 hours, 19 hours, 11 hours, six hours, three hours, 20 minutes and nine minutes.

A specific list of safety checks (inspect external fuel tanks at T-minus 11 hours), launch-preparation tasks (clear launch pad and surrounding area of personnel at T-minus six hours) and decision points (final ‘go/no-go’ poll among launch managers at T-minus nine minutes) are addressed before ending the hold and proceeding into the countdown.

For this final Shuttle mission, designated STS-135, the planned holds range in duration from 10 minutes to 14 hours.

Only after the countdown clock resumes following the final hold at T-minus nine minutes will it reflect the actual amount of time remaining until liftoff.

　
　

Enterprise visits Stansted

One of the most exciting assignments I was ever given as a young local newspaper reporter back in the early 1980s was to cover the visit to Stansted airport of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, riding piggyback on its 747 carrier aircraft.

It was in the early days of the Space Shuttle programme and NASA had flown Enterprise round Europe as a PR stunt, accompanied by the commander of the first ever flight John Young who, with Bob Crippen, had flown the orbiter’s maiden voyage on 12 April 1981.

The stop-off on a Sunday afternoon at Stansted airport north of London attracted thousands of people eager like myself to catch a glimpse of the new spaceship.

Strictly speaking it was not ‘local’ news for the Lincolnshire Free Press/Spalding Guardian weekly newspapers - but my Editor David Young knew it would attract many visitors from our area and was astute enough not to curb a young hack’s enthusiasm.

As a newly qualified reporter with a mainstay diet of local courts, councils and police work I could hardly of dreamed that the 80 mile trip to Stansted would sow the seeds for a career that would one day take me to many of the iconic space centres of the world, including Kennedy Space Center (KSC) itself to witness the countdown and launch of Space Shuttles.

The piece I wrote for the Lincolnshire Free Press — in those days a traditional broadsheet paper owned by East Midlands Allied Press (EMAP) — reflected the optimism surrounding the fledgling Shuttle programme.

Dr Hans Mark, deputy director of NASA at the time, predicted that by the mid-1990s there would be almost one Shuttle mission per week and that before the end of the century several thousand people would have flown in space.

Of course, in the end things didn’t quite turn out quite as he and many others had predicted.

So, some 28 years later, after collecting my press badges and passing through security on a sultry July morning, I find myself driving up the long approach road to NASA’s KSC.

The giant Vehicle Assembly Building dominates the view ahead and round the corner somewhere a Space Shuttle stands on launch pad 39A ready to make history.

Mademoiselle Rouge

Thank you Sir Richard - Branson of course - for a ride on one of your brand new Airbus A330-300 aeroplanes across the Atlantic today.

Virgin Atlantic introduced the first of its new A330 aircraft ‘Beauty Queen’ on the Manchester to Orlando route just this April, with the second ‘Mademoiselle Rouge’ following on the Gatwick-Orlando schedule from early May.

According to Virgin, the A330 deliver savings in emissions and fuel consumption, and offers customers a ‘cutting-edge product which will transform their flying experience’.

Within two years Virgin will be flying 10 of the long range twin-engined aircraft which are among the most efficient aircraft in their class today. All will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines manufactured in Derby, UK.

The new planes, which will use 15 per cent less fuel per seat than the airline's A340-300 aircraft, also feature a revolutionary new in-flight entertainment system created by Panasonic. It uses the latest touch screen technology and features over 300 hours of content.

And so was my flying experience transformed by Mademoiselle Rouge? I have to say it was a pretty good flight all round, with lower noise levels and much improved seating arrangements in economy class.

As for the entertainment system - that’s pretty cool too with 65 of the latest films to watch ‘on demand’, and a bewildering range of TV programmes, news flashes, music and games to keep you glued to the screen.

But, no matter how good the ‘facilities’, after nine hours in the air I’m more than ready to leave the confines of an A330.

Ninety minutes after the smoothest of landings I was through customs and car hire, heading out in the bright evening sunshine to the east coast of Florida where a craft of an altogether different era is waiting patiently on its launch pad.