Jonathan's Space Report No. 146 1993 Mar 15 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much has happened for the past couple weeks... STS-55 ------ The launch of Columbia on mission STS-55 has been delayed until March 21. Meanwhile, Discovery was rolled to VAB Bay 1 on Mar 2 and mated with the external tank on Mar 3, in preparation for STS-56, now scheduled for April 7. Rollout of STS-56 to pad B was due on Mar 15. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Asuka spacecraft has successfully extended its optical bench. Meanwhile, the call for observing proposals for the repaired Hubble Space Telescope has been issued. The repair mission is scheduled for December. For the first time in 10 years, a backup NASA astronaut is being assigned to the mission. Greg Harbaugh will serve as backup to EVA astronauts Musgrave, Akers, Hoffman, and Thornton in case one of them is unable to fly. The decision reflects the extensive training required for the mission. NASA used to have full backup crews for every mission. After the first four Shuttle flights, it was felt that there would be enough Shuttle crews in training that crew members could be replaced by someone from another crew, and that the training specific to a particular mission didn't take that long. For Spacelab missions, the non-NASA astronaut payload specialists have continued to have backups. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LC39A STS-55 OV-103 Discovery VAB Bay 1 STS-56 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-57 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/STS-56/ET/OV-103 VAB Bay 1 ML2/STS-57/ET VAB Bay 3 ML3/STS-55/ET/OV-102 LC39A .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'