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Discovery 'ready to go' for Tuesday launchForecasters: 40 percent chance of unfavorable weather
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSKENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- NASA said Sunday that the countdown for the first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster in 2003 is on track for Tuesday morning. Eleven days after mission controllers scrubbed a launch of the shuttle Discovery, NASA test director Jeff Spaulding said there are "no significant issues" that technicians know about that would stand in the way of the liftoff, set for 10:39 a.m. ET. "Our vehicle and ground systems continue to perform well," Spaulding said. On July 13, a pre-launch test showed one of Discovery's four sensors in its hydrogen fuel tank was not working correctly. A test command was sent to the sensor that should have made the fuel gauge change from full to empty. But the reading didn't change. Following more than a week of troubleshooting, NASA test director Pete Nickolenko said Saturday that he and others are confident the system will work the way it is supposed to on Tuesday. "No doubt there is some degree of finger crossing," Nickolenko said. "But the other side of the coin is that we have really performed a very thorough troubleshooting analysis to a great degree, an excruciating degree of detail with all the shuttle program experts and the contractors that we can get." (Full story) Weather delay possibleAs always, weather could force officials to delay the launch. Weather officer Kathy Winters said forecasters expect good conditions at launch time, with only a 40 percent chance of unfavorable weather at the Kennedy Space Center. Winters said the weather team is watching Tropical Storm Franklin, although it's not threatening the launch. Franklin is about 500 miles off the east coast of Florida, moving away from the United States at about 17 mph and is expected to weaken. Pad workers will be checking out orbiter and ground communications networks Monday. Discovery's external fuel tank will be loaded after midnight on Monday, about a three-hour process. On Tuesday, crew members are expected to board the spacecraft about 7 a.m. ET, about three-and-a-half hours before launch. The current launch window for Discovery ends July 31, after which the mission might have to be postponed until at least September 9. The mission is scheduled to last 12 days, with a focus on safety issues -- following the loss of the Columbia crew in February 2003 -- and on re-supplying the International Space Station. "We have had a great many challenges to get ready for a return to flight," said Spaulding. "That is the cost of the safest shuttle to date." "Our ground systems are ready, our flight crew is ready." Asked to describe the mood of the team after the July 13 scrub, Spaulding said the team is "focused, excited, they are ready to go." A panel that investigated the Columbia disaster concluded that a piece of insulating foam fell off the external fuel tank during liftoff and struck the shuttle's wing, cracking the tiles. The breach caused Columbia to disintegrate during the heat of re-entry. All seven crew members died. Discovery's crew is scheduled to test a battery of new tools and techniques NASA engineers developed after the loss of Columbia to inspect the spacecraft's heat-resistant exterior tiles for any damage that might have occurred during liftoff. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. 
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