STS-123

Submitted by Chuck C on Mon, 10/03/2008 - 2:32pm. The Campfire

For those interested, I'll post updates for mission STS-123 of Endavour here.

Fueling of the external tank has started. According to the timeline, the crew should be awake and going for breakfast about now.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 4:34pm

ET fueling almost complete, slow replinish soon to start. The crew should be close to finishing their late medical checks.

Still looking good for an on time launch at 2.38 EDT.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 7:20pm

The crew is suiting up and almost ready to head out to the pad for the launch.

Green board so far.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 7:40pm

The crew is now on the way to the launch pad.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 8:17pm

CDR and MS3 being strapped in. PLT and MS4 next.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 8:54pm

All the crew are aboard now. Next up is hatch closing.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 9:08pm

Comm checks complete, no problems.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 9:49pm

Phones now disabled in firing room 4 on orders of NTD (NASA Test Director)

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Carla Landy

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 9:59pm

I am lucky enough to live on the SW coast of FL and can actually see the shuttle from our area. It may be a shiny speck in the sky but still have been able to take a photo. We had rain earlier this evening and there is still a lot of cloud cover which could prevent my seeing it this morning.

Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 10:18pm

Everything looks good for an on time launch at 2.38.17 EDT tonight. In the T-20 hold for 10 minutes, next hold will be at T -9 minutes.

Welcome to the Boma Carla! I'm the resident space geek.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 10:32pm

Range clear to launch.

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Carla Landy

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 10:53pm

Hi Chuck. Looks like I will be watching the launch on TV. Just checked the sky and we are still covered with thick clouds. Have less than an hour to launch and I might be lucky and see the sky open to the east.

i have been watching Africam for almost a year now and am so addicted. just love the critters. this time change is a killer.

Chuck C

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Mon, 10/03/2008 - 11:41pm

Beautiful launch. I have to make it to a night launch sometime.

Endavour is safely on orbit and headed to ISS in a few days.

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Lea

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Tue, 11/03/2008 - 7:57am

Thanks for the update Chuck.

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Chuck C

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Tue, 11/03/2008 - 11:11am

All in all it looks like it was a good launch...BUT...at 83 seconds in there was a foam liberation event that came close to the starboard wing. This was detected by both C and X band radar at KSC. At present they don't think there was an impact.

If there was an impact, Discovery will be stacked ASAP and launched as the rescue vehicle, that would happen very quickly...in the next 20 days or so and Atlantis would be the backup for Discovery should that be needed.

Sounds like they are not too worried, but it's a good idea to have a back up and a back up to the back up.

The launch was a great show none-the-less.

Here's to a fantastic mission.

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Dutchman

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Tue, 11/03/2008 - 11:51am

Hi Chuck,

Before coming to Michigan in 1986 we lived in the Port Richey area and was able to see an evening launch from there.

Chuck C

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Tue, 11/03/2008 - 12:21pm

Envy!!

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Chuck C

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Tue, 11/03/2008 - 1:51pm

Wake up music for today, a true classic and one of my favorites...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbiYFA0-8mU

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Chuck C

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Wed, 12/03/2008 - 3:26pm

"Tally ho" ISS in sight.

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Chuck C

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Wed, 12/03/2008 - 5:31pm

50,000 feet out. TI burn coming up next.

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Chuck C

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Wed, 12/03/2008 - 5:46pm

"Good burn, no trim required."

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Chuck C

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Wed, 12/03/2008 - 7:19pm

Fantastic pictures coming down.

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Chuck C

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Fri, 14/03/2008 - 4:42pm

Sorry for disappearing, bad food and a sick nephew occupied my time for the last few days.

EVA 1 went well for the most part. There's a bit of a power issue with CSA's Dextre manipulator. Both NASA and CSA think that they understand the problem and will know for sure later this evening.

JLPM is now frimly attached to the zenith (space facing) port on Harmony (node 2) and the power up and ingress are in work.

A short while ago they had the Daily Planning Conference (DPC) and it was AMAZING!! MCCH (Houston), POC (Payload Operations Control, just a few miles down the road from me), MCCM (Moscow), Columbus control in Munich, SCUBA (JAXA control center in Japan) and the ATV control center in France were all on line for the first time. What makes this so amazing is that it wasn't all that long ago that all these countrys were mortal enemys at one time or another.

What better way to learn how to get along than manned spaceflight.

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Chuck C

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Fri, 14/03/2008 - 6:10pm

Ingress to JLPM has been advanced by several hours. Should be happening in the next few minutes.

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Chuck C

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Fri, 14/03/2008 - 6:26pm

Hatch open and lights are in in JLP. Welcome to ISS JAXA and Japan!!

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Chuck C

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Sat, 15/03/2008 - 2:36pm

The 2 EVA crew members are in the process of suiting up for EVA 2. The focus will be more assembly of DEXTRE.

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Chuck C

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Sat, 15/03/2008 - 4:27pm

EVA crew all suited up and in the crew lock. Pressure is now down to around 7 PSI.

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Chuck C

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Sat, 15/03/2008 - 4:55pm

Suits are now on internal power. Going to be a long one.

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Chuck C

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Mon, 17/03/2008 - 3:04pm

Sorry for the delay.

EVA 2 was a success and the check out of DEXTRE is on going.

EVA 3 is about to start and final assembly of DEXTRE is on tap along with moving a few ORU's and external experiments to ISS.

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kru-kab bowser b.c.

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Mon, 17/03/2008 - 3:12pm

I ALLWAYS READ JUST DONT ALLWAYS REPLY THANKS FOR THE UPDATES FOR US INTERESTED IN SPACE

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Chuck C

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Mon, 17/03/2008 - 3:22pm

No worries!! If there is a shuttle up, I have the TV on NASA select and try to keep up. If you should ever find yourself in this part of the world I will give you a guided tour of more space stuff that you could want.

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