Launch Rehearsal for Discovery Shuttle Launch

Launch Rehearsal for Discovery Shuttle Launch

The crew of the upcoming Space Shuttle launch Discovery participated in a dress rehearsal on Wednesday for their planned launch in July. The practice round suffered some issues, which could have possible led to grounding of spacecraft during actual liftoff. Looks like NASA did well by delaying the launch until the month of July to do additional work on the Shuttle.

Discovery launch will mark the comeback of the Space Shuttle to the space after the Columbia incident, which led to the grounding of the entire fleet of this spacecraft. Body damage occurred to the Shuttle while lift off which let to the disintegration of the entire shuttle when coming back to the earth. That led to the death of the entire crew onboard, which included Kalpana Chawla from India.

During the dress rehearsal, the crew faced two major issues. One was the bad weather, which might become a major hassle during the actual launch. The other problem was with the communications glitch with Air Force safety and tracking equipment, which is a must during an actual launch. They ended the test a scripted last-second cutoff of the shuttle’s main engines. This is to prevent a massive explosion should there is a major problem occur during the launch process.

This practice round is normal NASA procedure for any Space Shuttle launch. Due to the delay in the launch process, the space agency would be moving back the shuttle to the vehicle assembly building in Cape Canaveral, Florida, for additional work.