Shuttle Discovery's return to Florida delayed


Recommended Posts

MIAMI (Reuters) - The return of the space shuttle Discovery to its home port in Florida, riding piggyback on a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet, was delayed on Saturday because of potentially bad weather along its route, NASA said.

Discovery had landed at Edwards Air Force base in California on August 9, completing NASA's first shuttle mission since its sister ship Columbia fell apart over Texas in February 2003.

After leaving Edwards on Friday, Discovery had landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to spend the night.

The U.S. space agency said in a statement the shuttle and its carrier would stay there until Sunday. Weather across Alabama, Georgia and Florida did not appear to be good enough to meet the safety requirements of the cumbersome aircraft.

NASA had tried to land Discovery at its home base at Cape Canaveral but Florida's fickle and thundery summer weather forced the agency to divert the spacecraft to Edwards in the Mojave Desert.

It costs roughly $1 million to transport a shuttle 2,200 miles cross-country. A shuttle was last carried on top of the modified jumbo back to Kennedy Space Center in June 2002. The 100-ton shuttle and its jet carrier fly at about 15,000 feet -- about half the altitude of commercial jet traffic.

The next shuttle mission to the International Space Station will not occur until next March -- a six-month delay -- while engineers try to find out why insulating foam fell off Discovery's external fuel tank during its July 26 liftoff.

Falling foam doomed Columbia when a briefcase-sized chunk knocked a hole in its wing at launch. During the space craft's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, superheated atmospheric gases tore into the gap.

Source

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm always amazed at how this is done. piggy backing the 747.

100 tons added to an already heavy plane. And the air flow must disrupted with it on the back. ? Must be a bumpy flight. Imagine if it falls off the back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My sister saw the jet/shuttle at Barksdale AFB! Awesome! :alien:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.