NASA officials have examined the faulty fuel sensor causing a two-week delay of the launch of the space shuttle Discovery and have decided that they’re not really sure what’s wrong with it. One of four sensors, the launch may go ahead whether it’s fixed or not.
The decision to launch despite the glitch would be an exception to NASA rules that doesn’t happen very often, if ever.
On July 13, Discovery lift-off was postponed as engineers put all of their focus into deciding what exactly caused one fuel sensor to deliver inaccurate readings while the shuttle’s tank was being filled with super-chilled gas.
The cause is assumed to be grounding problems with the circuitry and electromagnetic interference, but engineers are not 100% positive.
“We’ve done an extensive degree of troubleshooting and analysis … to really as best we can understand what we’ve got,” test director Pete Nickolenko said.
“I believe that we’re ready, and I feel very confident going into the terminal countdown that the entire team’s ready to execute this mission. And we fully expect that it should work as designed.”
Discovery is scheduled for launch at 10:39 AM EST on Tuesday morning. Testing will begin early Tuesday morning as the external fuel tanks are filled.
NASA rules stipulate that all four sensors must work before launch can proceed. But mission managers may decide to launch if only 3 sensors are operable.
The troublesome sensor was swapped out with another sensor on the tank to examine if the problem was because of shuttle circuitry or tank wiring.
If more than the one sensor fails this time, however, launch will be cancelled.
Discovery’s launch is part of NASA’s Return to Flight Mission, an important milestone to the space agency marking the first launch since the Columbia disaster of 2003.
