STS-135 Atlantis has a tentative launch date

Its official. Space Shuttle Atlantis has a NET launch date of July 8, 2011 at 11:40 AM EDT. And NASA will be hosting one last space shuttle launch tweetup. Registration for the tweetup opens on June 1 at 12:00PM EDT and ends on June 2 at
12:00PM EDT, provided Endeavor’s landing doesn’t cause a delay. Double check with NASA’s website tweetup page to verify this when as it gets closer to the time.

Its the last shuttle launch. Ever. And until we get a new vehicle made, it’ll be the last launch of people for the USA.

Shuttle Launch no earlier than Dec 17th

And Discovery’s launch has been pushed back to a possible mid December launch to allow the team to figure out why those external tank stringers have have been cracking. She will fly, but it will be when she is safe to go.

I still don’t know if I will be able to attend, but if I can I will. I won’t purchase a ticket until they actually set a launch date. Its too uncertain to get that ticket until the NASA folks and engineers are more confident of the cause.

More Shuttle delays

We got the word today that Discovery’s launch will be no earlier than Dec 3 at 2:59 AM. I’ve made no flight plans at this time. The Mission Management Team has moved their press conference back to Nov 29th. We’ll have a better idea next Wednesday

There’s a crack in the external tank

Actually there are 2 cracks in the tank itself. Those cracks were underneath the foam. They are still evaluating how long it will take to get everything repaired. So until we get a better idea of the time frame involved, I’m not making any plans yet.

New Launch window and invite!

OMG! All the STS-133 Nasatweetup participants received an email today. If we still have our credentials, and can make it to Florida for the launch window November 30 – December 6th, we can watch the launch from the press site!!!!! Excuse me while I go a bit nuts for a little bit! Woohoo! Yipee! Hooray! W00t!

I do need to temper this a bit. I don’t know that I can take vacation for this. I used a week for the first launch window. And I cannot stay for the entire window. I already have a commitment for Dec 4th for my business. So I need to see several things before I can say that I’ll be able to go down for it. I want to go. I really want to go! But I have a number of duckies to get in a row before I can say that I can go.

Oooooh but if I can, I will!

Uploading pics from Nasatweetup

I’ve been uploading, organizing and tagging the pictures I took while out of town for the Tweetup. This is taking longer than I thought to get the pictures up and turned and tagged. I probably have between 250 and 300 400 pictures from the time I spent in Florida on the Space Coast.

In other space shuttle news, Nasa engineers are evaluating the damage that has been done to the foam on Discovery and the hydrogen leak at the ground umbilical carrier plate. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that they can fix it easily there on the launch pad. Hopefully they’ll have a plan of action by Wednesday.

Launch delayed to Nov 30th

It was another emotionally whip sawed day. We got up at 6am to check our emails and tweetstreams to see what the launch control team was saying for the day. It was looking good at that time. The team was “Go” to fuel the main tanks, with a now 70% chance of good weather to launch. Hooray! So we got ready to go get breakfast and for the rest of the day. We picked up our breakfast vouchers and met up with @planetcomicon for diner food.

The diner, Sunrise Diner, had excellent food and we were very wound up for the day. After we ate, we got on the road to KSC for the program and launch.

As I was driving out, @otakuchick was watching the tweetstream and seeing all the groups’ excitement.

But as we were pulling into the media parking lot, we got the word that there appeared to be a hydrogen leak in the fueling system. Lots of bad news, that. We didn’t know if it was a rumor or good, so we were waiting on more official word. Which did come. We found out it was going to be at least a 48 hour delay, if not 72 hours. Stephanie was totally awesome and still managed to get a speaker to come out to us this morning. Astronaut Dan Tani, who first flew in 1998, and has flown on all 3 orbiters, as well as was stationed on the International Space Station. He was a very engaging speaker and was a great sport to come and speak with us tweeps.

After he finished up, I decided to check to see if I could change my flight home to today. Given that we knew it would take at least 20 hours to remove the hydrogen from the tanks before they could even begin to see what was up with the leak. Then it was probably going to be a very small chance that it could launch in that window on Sunday. I couldn’t stick around for a minutely possible Monday launch. So I decided to go home today.

After reluctantly leaving the tweetup area, we went back and checked out of our room. And let me tell you, the Luna Sea motel on A1A is awesome! I would go back there in a heartbeat, where I would skip the Titusville Days Inn in the future. I was able to get my flight changed to the last one back to Birmingham tonight.

So I’m now sitting in the Orlando Airport with others who are here waiting to go home to Birmingham, since our flight has been delayed 2 hours. At least I’ll be at home in my own bed tonight. I’ll get to see my kitties, too.

I can’t commend Nasa and our tweetup co-ordinator Stephanie Schierholz enough. Everyone who was with Nasa was incredibly helpful and gracious. In spite of all the delays, the entire tweetup staff have gone above and beyond the call of duty and delay to make sure that we who had traveled there from all over the world were taken care of by Nasa. Honestly, I would do this again in a heartbeat!

Weather delays and hotel shifts

When we heard heavy rain this morning as one of our roomates left at 5, we had a clue that it was coming. The 5:30 AM weather briefing pushed back the launch by approx. 24 hours to Friday at 3:09 PM eastern.

Our Nasa tweetup coordinator, Stephanie is awesome. The tweetup tent is still there, but the air conditioners for it had to be returned to the rental place. Of course, tomorrow is supposed to have a high of 69F, so I’m not concerned about needing an air conditioner. I’m ore concerned about needing a blanket! We have a speaker schedule starting at 9:30 AM.I really ought to be thinking about some relevant questions for our speakers, but I’m still just boggling that I’m here! We get to wave to the astronauts as they ride on their way to the shuttle. Wheee!

This is an uncertain proposition. We will find out at 6am how things are an if Nasa will continue to try to launch. There is a 60% chance of good weather for the launch.

But unfortunately we just got word on twitter that they have rolled the Rotating Service Structure back around Discovery. They haven’t said why. This doesn’t necessarily bode well for a launch tomorrow.

Hopefully a launch

Well, even though the weather isn’t the best, Nasa is going to re-start the countdown for launch on Thursday. There will be an evaluation of the weather conditions at 5:30am to see if it is safe to load the main tanks at 6:00am. If so, the countdown will continue. The weather still looks wet for the day, but if it is clear during the launch window they will light that bird up. I’m hopeful it will go, but have made additional arrangements if it doesn’t. Many of the Nasa tweetup folks have had to go home. I can wait a bit longer. But I do have to go back to work next week. Collectively our fingers are crossed for this tomorrow. Please wish Nasa luck for this!

Quick link to info on shuttle launch probs

Here’s a quick link to a reliable site with a good explanation of the latest cause of the launch delay.

http://www.interspacenews.com/FeatureArticle/tabid/130/Default.aspx?id=5431

Arrived in Florida Today and another delay

We are here at the Evil Lab room down in Florida for the tweetup.

I got the word right before I got onto the airplane this morning that the launch date was probably going to be slipped to Wednesday. But since I was already in the airport and on my way to meet my roomies, it was pointless to fret.

When I touched down at Orlando International Airport, I had several texts from one of my roomies, @otakuchick. Her flight arrived last night and she crashed at an airport hotel, then came over and met me at the airport. We picked up a rental car and drove over to Titusville.

The hotel allowed us to check in early since there were rooms available. Then we got some lunch and then headed to KSC to pick up our tweetup credentials. We met 6 other folks who are staying at one of the rental houses in the area there. After all of us got our credentials, we headed over to the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex.

Wow. I have a number of phone pics from the rocket garden, but haven’t downloaded them yet. We met more tweetup folks there. We got to ride the Shuttle Launch Experience there! Talk about a really fun ride. I could turn around and hit that ride a number of time. Some folks with the Orion Launch Abort System had a demo of the system. We met up with one of the engineers who is working on this system, and it was really cool talking to her!

After hanging out at KSC, we left after they were encouraging all the visitors to please leave now… Timmy met Camilla SDO, then we headed to Dixie Crossroads on Titusville for dinner with a number of other space tweeps.

That was fun too, but after dinner we cme back to the room and met up with my other roomie, @susanjsteward.

Tomorrow is a free day, and we are really hoping that the launch goes off on time. The first official day of the tweetup will be Monday. We’ll be free on Tuesday, and then if all goes well, the launch day activities will be on Wednesday.

Keep your fingers crossed that it goes off on Wednesday!

Shuttle Launch delayed 1 Day

We got word this morning that due to mechanical problems the launch was delayed by a day. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

I’ll still be leaving on Saturday, but will be staying for an extra day. Either I’ll use the day at KSC to tour or go see the airshow at Cocoa Beach on Sunday.

We got the agenda for the NASA Tweetup

I got an email from the tweetup coordinator today with the agenda for both days. They’ve adjusted the early check in time on Saturday to allow a little later window. I was pleased since I was arriving with very little time to spare to get from Orlando to the Space Coast before the early check in closed. So it won’t be nearly as rushed to get there! I want to find the check in site and have the opportunity to look around KSC before getting totally overwhelmed with the tweetup.

The tweetup officially starts at noon on Oct 31. We will be busy with presentations by NASA team member John Yembrick, Astronaut Nicole Stott, Bill Gerstenmaier, Astronaut Ron Garan, and Stephanie Stillson; demos by/of Robonaut 2 and the Astronauts ACES -Advanced Crew Escape Suit. Then we’ll have the opportunity to tour several parts of KSC. We’ll have the chance to see the International Space Station Center, the Saturn V Center, the Shuttle Landing Facility, the Mate-Demate Device, the Orbiter Processing Facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Mobile Launcher Platforms. We’ll also have the opportunity to see Discovery on the Launch Pad and watch as the Rotating Service structure is retracted on Sunday evening. And that’s just the first day!

Then on Monday, the tweetup starts at 11:00AM. We’ll get a group picture by the countdown clock, and have several more presentations by Astronaut Janet Voss, Jason Goldman – Vice President of Product Twitter, Lt. Col. Patrick Barrett of the 45th Weather Squadron USAF, and a member of the STS-133 Closeout Crew. In the midst of this, we’ll stop and line the road that the Astronauts will travel to the shuttle on the launch pad to wave and wish them well. If all goes well, the shuttle will launch at 4:40PM Eastern Time. Remember it’ll be 3:40PM Central Time, for those here in town!

If you want to watch the launch, you can watch in online at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv. NASA will broadcast the Oct 31st 2:20PM-3:20PM part of the tweetup on ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-television If your tv provider has the NASA Channel, you can watch the launch and possibly other parts of the tweetup there.

NASA is expecting more than 500,000 people to be in the area for the launch. They have said to expect better delays of up to 3 hours trying to get out after the launch. It makes Talladega race weekend traffic look like nothing. I expect we will all be buzzing from the rush of the launch for a very long time, and will not be willing to leave the area until traffic clears a bit.

Now for some links to follow along with the tweetup. The official Twitter account is @NASATweetup. The twitter list and twitter stream of all the participants is http://twitter.com/nasatweetup/sts-133-launch. The hashtag for the tweetup is #NASATweetup. The link to all of NASA’s social media sites is http://buzzroom.nasa.gov/. The page for Shuttle Mission STS-133 is http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133/index.html.

This is SO Exciting! Its like waiting for Christmas morning when you are 6 years old! Only 2 more days, then I’ll be flying out for the tweetup. Its for real!

If you would like to put your name in the hat for the next launch at the end of February, get a Twitter account, follow @NASATweetup, and keep watch out for when they open up the website http://www.nasa.gov/connect/tweetup/index.html for entries to the tweetup for STS-134. Keep an eye out from mid November on. With luck, you’ll be in this same place come February!

The Launch is on!

Woohoo! The crew who are responsible for the go/no go decision on the space shuttle have made their decision about the potential launch on Nov First. The Flight Readiness Review was conducted this afternoon, and they have decided that the shuttle is in shape and flight ready.

STS-133 is on schedule to take off on November 1st from Launch Pad 39A.

So I am on schedule to depart Saturday morning and go to Kennedy Space Center to watch!

Woohoo! Hooray! Yipee!