Geek Habitat

The folks in ties in Mission Control are standing up with their hands on their hips or in their pockets. The weather radar doesn’t look good, but I just saw some smiles and a handshake.

So… am I a betting woman? Are we a tentative “Go” for landing? It’s still 5 hours away, but this initial decision is required to set the process in motion. Among other things, the Shuttle can’t fire its engines and prepare for deorbit until it closes its payload bay doors. This corresponds to the point we were at yesterday (Monday) when I wrote this entry.

12:17 AM CST — “The Big Picture”:

Fluid loading is simply when the astronauts dramatically increase their intake of water/fluids. Since fluids are lost/displaced in the body in zero-g, fluid loading helps astronauts’ bodies adjust to re-entering Earth’s gravity. However, with 6 possible landing opportunities today, if CAPCOM instructed the astronauts to begin fluid loading at every possible landing opportunity checkpoint, we’d have some very uncomfortable astronauts — they have a toilet onboard the Space Shuttle, but in landing configuration (strapped in and wearing their partial pressure launch and landing spacesuits), using it is not an option. That’s assuming the toilet is even operating, due to all the pre-landing configurations that occur to help conserve the Shuttle orbiter’s power for crucial things like life support, maneuvering engines (used only in space) and such. So, CAPCOM is trying to be kind to our astronauts by not drowning them with too many fluids…

The next milestone is the activation of the “Ops 3 transition,” which if that sounds familiar is the same thing as the astronauts did yesterday, in preparation for the (subsequently waived) landing opportunities in Florida. Ops 3 is the re-entry and landing software used onboard the Space Shuttle.

12:27 AM CST: CAPCOM just gave Discovery a “Go” for the “Ops 3 transition”.

With that, I think I’m going to nest for about 2 hours. A crucial decision point will occur around 2 AM CST when NASA decides if it should indeed instruct the crew to begin fluid loading in preparation for the first available landing opportunity. They won’t instruct them to fluid load unless the weather looks favorable for taking that first landing opportunity in Florida. In the absence of good weather, they’ll waive off the first opportunity (4:07 AM CST) and focus on taking the second (5:43 AM CST), instead.

Kent Rominger’s weather recon flights will resume in about 45 minutes, at which point he’ll have swapped a T-38 Talon for the Shuttle Training Aircraft, just as he did yesterday.