HOUSTON — Space shuttle program managers have delayed Discovery’s tanking test from Dec. 15 to no earlier than Dec. 17, after unusually cold and windy weather at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center slowed efforts to complete the installation of temperature sensors and strain gauges around four small cracks on the external tank.
The delay was announced Dec. 13. The test was ordered earlier this month as part of the troubleshooting underway to determine the cause of the cracks on adjacent aluminum lithium alloy stringers on the intertank region of the 154-ft.-tall external tank.
The cracks surfaced Nov. 5, when efforts to launch Discovery were scrubbed because of an unrelated hydrogen leak at the external fuel tank’s Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate.
During the upcoming test, Discovery’s external tank will be loaded with liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants. Sensors placed inside and outside of the stringer region that separates the internal oxygen and hydrogen containers will measure changes in stresses associated with the flow of the chilled fuels.
Discovery’s 39th and final mission is currently set for launch no earlier than Feb. 3. Earlier this month, Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said February launch plans could accommodate a late December tanking test as well as a rollback of Discovery from the launch pad to Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building for a post-test X-ray analysis of the intertank.
Discovery’s six astronauts will fit the International Space Station with an equipment module and an external platform to store spare parts
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