Nasa has set 13 July as the launch date for Discovery, the first shuttle to go into space since the Columbia disaster in February 2003.
The announcement follows a two-day review of the Discovery's readiness for lift-off.

An original launch date in May was put back because of ongoing redesign work on the shuttle's fuel tank.

Columbia disintegrated after re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Earlier this week, a panel monitoring Nasa said the agency had failed to meet three of 15 recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (Caib) for the safe resumption of shuttle flights.

But Nasa Administrator Michael Griffin said Discovery was fit for launch.

"Based on a very thorough and very successful flight readiness review, we're currently 'go' for launch of Discovery on 13 July," he announced.

Ice risk

An earlier investigation found Columbia broke up as a result of damage sustained when a chunk of fuel-tank insulating foam smashed into its left wing during lift-off two weeks earlier.

The Caib probe concluded astronauts would still be unable to fix such damage once in orbit.

While Nasa's focus was on how to prevent the insulating foam breaking off, concerns also emerged earlier this year about the build-up of ice on the outside of the fuel tank.

The agency's management however decided the risk of ice striking the shuttle's heat shield was low enough to resume flights.

Discovery will carry a seven-strong crew on a mission to take supplies and parts to the International Space Station.

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This is very good news especially for the ongoing work @ the ISS which has had to be serviced by Progress modules launched from Soyuz rockets. Speaking of which, another Progress module docked with the ISS earlier this month, fired its thrusters for five minutes, raising the orbit of the station by 2.3 kilometers to a mean altitude of 352.9 km. An entirely routine orbit-raising maneuver, a regular event to counteract atmospheric drag, was timed so that the station would provide the "best possible conditions" for a shuttle docking.

Nice to see humankind's explorations are starting to pick up again.

Stay tuned for news of the Deep Impact project...

So the shuttles are still not safe enough? Do you see what I mean? The US goverment just don't care about their people, the only thing they care about is their reputation and their money. Ok, sometimes they say they do care, but yet again just to get their reputation high, it's all one and the same here in Holland. I almost would say that our "president" J.P. Balkenende is a copy of G.W. Bush. They're almost the same.

The Columbia accident were just seven young people who died for their country, or actually for their gouverment. How could they be so stupid to step into a spaceshuttle that isn't safe? Were they forced? Or didn't they know it wasn't safe. The CAIB said that the goverment already knew that the Columbia and other spaceshuttles weren't safe. But did the crew know?
The goverment say that they didn't know anything, but the CAIB say they did know. Someone is lying, but who is it?....
If the CAIB can prove that the goverment did send the Columbia when they know there was a risk that they would crash then I think the goverment will be in deep, deep troubles.......

-=jeroen=-

Eh, I hope everything trurns out okay this time. NASA spent a lot of time fixing and prepairing though, so we all know nothing was rushed here. Best of luck.

Has anyone surfed around the Discovery Shuttle's website? (Well, I think it was that one...) It has this funny program that makes flash movies, where you choose a background, music, main characters and type in what they say.

Anyway. Haven't looked at the calendar for a while so I'm kind of out of sync, but I'm hoping the 13th of July isn't a Friday, lol. Now, repeating Repeater (cackles insanely), I wish them the best of luck... The Colombia disaster was a bit of a.. Well.. Yeah.. So I'm hoping this one will go well so other shuttles will be launched. If this one crashed or had a fatal problem also, I don't think NASA will launch another one for a long, long time. Anyhow, best of luck to the Discovery team

I'm not sure how many people were watching the Discovery Launch coverage, but for those interested, I thought I'd bump this thread to let people know that its been delayed / postponed. I personally was disappointed but they obviously can't afford to make any mistakes this time.

There's more to problems than the fuel gauge alone. Was reading Space earlier and found this.



It still amazes me that something so simple can go wrong on a million dollar machine. Just imagine if that window cover falling off mid-launch and not on Tuesday...

After the Columbia incident, I feel it has been all about saving face and not really about the safety of the spacecraft. Whenever a situation arises, how many times does the government actually admit they know anything about the situation? Maybe it is time they start taking space exploration seriously - after all our planet is getting a bit crowded.

I hope everything turn out ok. NASA works day and night for these acomplishements, so it's more than fair to be sucessfull. I believe deep impact will change the way we view the universe.

Also think about this...with the X-prize now in the hads of a private corporation NASA is now competing with a private company for launches comercial launches and what not. With the Shuttle fleet ageing I think its time to start thinking about coming up with a new space vehicle or we might be seeing a lot more Challanger and Discovery type accedents.

I'm not too familiar with the whole X-Prize venture, but I take it that it is the first privately manned spacecraft to go into space. However, from what I read at X-Prize, it seems they made it to an altitude past 100km but thats still within the atmosphere I believe and therefore not weightless. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. What I would like to know is what other plans they have for the future and do they plan on landing on the moon?

Well from what I know about the X-prize was that they had to make 2 launches in as many weeks to a preset altitude. I watched one of the Launches on a Discovery Channel program and the pilot had M&M candies floating around the cock-pit. As for the future of the X-prize winner from what I know they plan on trying to start comercial trips soon...not sure will check to see if I can find out before finishing this post...will go check now...hold on...

Mojave Aerospace Ventures won the prize and here is an artical exerp that I found about the company, taken from the following site: View full artical, "SpaceShipOne, Ansari X Prize Winner" here

Mojave Aerospace Ventures prides itself as the furry little mammal on the back of the dinosaurs that once led the space race. "I think they're looking at each other and saying we're scr###d," opined Burt Rutan of his counterparts at NASA. "I have a [much] bigger goal. I have to make a commercial flight program that's 100 times safer than anything we have now." With the financial backing of Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic (and soon, Virgin Galactic), "we're putting about 100 million dollars into space," Rutan's charge is to provide five vehicles, each capable of lofting five individuals to similar heights three years from now. "I'll be on that first flight in three years time," said Branson. Those vehicles could likely become the world's initiation into space tourism. Branson said 5 million had expressed interest in the idea and at least 5,000 indicated they would spend the close to $200,000 for a ticket. And, "Any money we make from space travel we will reinvest in more space travel," Branson Said.


As for the future of the X-prize? Now that the first X-prize has been won now they are planning on moving on and starting the X-Cup. To me it sound like fun here is a excerp from an artical and a link to read it:
Read, "The New Race to Space" here

One vehicle is not enough, "what we need is a fleet of space ships" said X Prize braintrust, Dr. Peter Diamandis. As AVweb told you Thursday, there's a new X Prize venture in the works, Diamandis' new baby is the X Prize Cup. "We need a sandbox to push the envelope to go higher faster farther," he said. Not unlike the golden age of air racing, Diamandis said the Cup aims to use competition to keep technology moving and stimulate a new era of public interest and involvement in aerospace development. It also intends to hone industrial competition for Rutan's team -- "A Dell and Gateway ... not just Apple." The X Prize Cup would pit teams and their vehicles against one another, seeking multi-million dollar prizes for "altitude records to 400,- 425,- 450,000 feet" and beyond, "time-to-climb" competitions, "turn-around" time, "how far they can go in a single flight?" and more.

Nasa and other "Government" funded space programs are in a world of trouble in my opinion. With the private sector coming into its own when it come to space exploration, the big-bulky-burocraticly driven programs like NASA might be on their way to extinction unless they can evolve and become able to compete commercially with the likes of Branson and his soon to be born Virgin Galactic corporation.