Space Shuttle Discovery Set To Land At 11:13 A.M. ET Saturday, Marking Halfway Point In Manifest Of Space Shuttle Flights; Third Arduous Spacewalk Completed At Space Station

Space Shuttle Discovery at 11:13 a.m. ET Saturday will land at Kennedy Space Center to finish a two-week STS-124 Mission delivering a giant Japanese Kibo laboratory that spacewalking astronauts attached to the International Space Station.

When Discovery comes to wheels stop on the runway, that will mark the halfway point from the Space Shuttle Columbia catastrophe to the end of shuttle flights by October 2010. After that date, the United States for half a decade will have no manned space flight capability.

The Kibo laboratory was attached to the space station during one of several spacewalks in the Discovery mission, marking a major expansion of living and working space inside the station.

Yesterday, mission specialists Mike Fossum and Ron Garan completed the third STS-124 spacewalk at 4:28 p.m. ET, a free-floating excursion that lasted six hours and 33 minutes.

Fossum and Garan accomplished all planned activities and several "get-ahead" tasks. They exchanged a depleted nitrogen tank assembly for a new one, removed thermal covers and launch locks from the Kibo laboratory, and reinstalled a repaired television camera.

The spacewalk was Fossum’s sixth, Garan’s third, the 112th spacewalk devoted to space station assembly and maintenance, and the 197th by U.S. astronauts.

Fossum also retrieved samples of a dust-like substance from the left solar alpha rotary joint (SARJ) for analysis by experts on the ground.

The SARJ is suffering limited motion capabilities, whether from moving components grinding against each other, or from space dust and debris fouling the mechanism.

In any event, the effect is to limit movement of the SARJ, hampering it from moving giant solar electrical generating arrays toward the sun. That means the arrays aren’t generating their maximum possible electrical output.

This may become an issue as the space station continues to grow, with more shuttle missions planned to bring further modules to be attached to the artificial moon.

That giant Japanese laboratory module was the second of three sections of the Kibo laboratory complex.

Raytheon Fires Enhanced Version Of PAC-3 Missile

The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) version was launched at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Raytheon Co. [RTN] announced.

Launch involved a Patriot Configuration-3 fire unit with engineering upgrades to the Post Deployment Build-6 system software.

This mission was the second in a series of live-fire exercises conducted to evaluate the new interceptor’s capability within the Patriot system.

"This test demonstrated the Patriot Configuration-3 flexibility to integrate new and evolving interceptors and expand the Patriot battlespace with minimal software and hardware changes to the ground system," said Sanjay Kapoor, vice president of Patriot Programs for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS).

"In support of the warfighter, Patriot continues to add capability to counter emerging threats, while providing increased system reliability and lowered life-cycle cost."

Raytheon is the prime contractor of the Patriot system and system integrator for the PAC-3 MSE interceptor, while Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] unit Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas is the prime contractor for the PAC-3 MSE interceptor.

Patriot is a long-range, high-altitude, all-weather system designed to defeat advanced threats, including tactical ballistic missiles, jet and rotary wing aircraft and cruise missiles. The weapon can simultaneously engage multiple targets under the most severe electronic countermeasure conditions.

The Patriot PAC-3 MSE program is managed by the Army Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space and executed by the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Project Office in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA To Launch GLAST From Cape Canaveral As Early As Wednesday

NASA postponed the launch of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., saying it now will lift off in a window from 11:45 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. ET Wednesday.

GLAST earlier had been set for launch last week.

Additional time was needed to replace the Delta II flight termination system battery, which indicated a problem.

NASA’s Shuttle and Rocket Missions

A variety of vehicles, launch sites on both U.S. coasts, shifting dates and times… the NASA Launch Schedule

Updated — June 5, 2008 – 2:50 p.m. EDT

Legend: + Targeted For | *No Earlier Than (Tentative) | **To Be Determined

2008 Launches

Date: June 11 *

Mission: GLAST

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17 – Pad 17-B

Launch Window: 11:45 a.m – 1:40 p.m. EDT

Description: An heir to its successful predecessor — the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory — the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope will have the ability to detect gamma rays in a range of energies from thousands to hundreds of billions of times more energetic than the light visible to the human eye. Radiation of such magnitude can only be generated under the most extreme conditions, thus GLAST will focus on studying the most energetic objects and phenomena in the universe.

Date: June 19 *

Mission: OSTM

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II

Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC-2

Launch Window: 12:59 a.m. – 1:08 a.m. PDT /3:59 a.m. – 4:08 a.m. EDT

Description: The Ocean Surface Topography Mission on the Jason-2 satellite will be a follow-on to the Jason mission.

Date: Sept. 13 *

Mission: IBEX

Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL Rocket

Launch Site: Reagan Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll

Description: IBEX’s science objective is to discover the global interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium and will achieve this objective by taking a set of global energetic neutral atom images that will answer four fundamental science questions.

Date: Sept. 14 +

Mission: TacSat-3

Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Minotaur Rocket

Launch Site: Wallops Flight Facility – Goddard Space Flight Center

Description: NASA will support the Air Force launch of the TacSat-3 satellite, managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate. TacSat-3 will demonstrate the capability to furnish real-time data to the combatant commander. NASA Ames will fly a microsat and NASA Wallops will fly the CubeSats on this flight in addition to providing the launch range.

Date: Oct. 8 +

Mission: STS-125

Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis

Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A

Description: Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly seven astronauts into space for the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, the crew will repair and improve the observatory’s capabilities through 2013.

Date: Nov. 10 +

Mission: STS-126

Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour

Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A

Description: Space Shuttle Endeavour launching on assembly flight ULF2, will deliver a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station.

Date: Nov. 13

Mission: STSS Demonstrators Program – Missile Defense Agency

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17, Pad A

Description: STSS Demonstrators Program is a midcourse tracking technology demonstrator and is part of an evolving ballistic missile defense system. STSS is capable of tracking objects after boost phase and provides trajectory information to other sensors and interceptors. To be launched by NASA for the Missile Defense Agency.

Date: Nov. 24 *

Mission: LRO/LCROSS

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41

Description: The mission objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite are to advance the Vision for Space Exploration by confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at either the Moon’s North or South Pole.

Date: Dec. 1 *

Mission: SDO

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41

Description: The first Space Weather Research Network mission in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program of NASA.

Date: Dec. 4 +

Mission: STS-119

Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Discovery

Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A

Description: Space Shuttle Discovery launching on assembly flight 15A, will deliver the fourth starboard truss segment to the International Space Station.

Date: Dec. 12 *

Mission: GOES-O

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta IV

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 37

Description: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are actively engaged in a cooperative program, the multimission Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite series N-P. This series will be a vital contributor to weather, solar and space operations, and science.

2009 Launches

Date: Jan. 15

Mission: OCO

Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket

Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC 576-E

Description: The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is a new Earth orbiting mission sponsored by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program.

Date: Feb. 1

Mission: NOAA-N Prime

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II

Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC-2

Description: NOAA-N Prime is the latest polar-orbiting satellite developed by NASA/Goddard Spaceflight Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA uses two satellites, a morning and afternoon satellite, to ensure every part of the Earth is observed at least twice every 12 hours. NOAA-N will collect information about Earth’s atmosphere and environment to improve weather prediction and climate research across the globe.

Date: Feb. 16

Mission: Kepler

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II

Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17 – Pad 17-B

Description: The Kepler Mission, a NASA Discovery mission, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to detect and characterize hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone.

Date: June 15

Mission: Glory

Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket

Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC 576-E

Description: The Glory Mission will help increase our understanding of the Earth’s energy balance by collecting data on the properties of aerosols and black carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere and how the Sun’s irradiance affects the Earth’s climate.

Source: NASA