Endeavour Space Shuttle Launch Scheduled On Monday
After a delay of some weeks, the countdown has begun at the Kennedy space centre as “Endeavour†is all set and scheduled to launch on Monday at 8:56 am again from launch pad 39A. Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will lead a crew of 6 people. He is the commander of the space ship. The officials from the NASA claim 70 percent chances of an on time launch of the space shuttle as the puny possibility of low-cloud cover might pose a problem creating hostile conditions. They are also keeping a track of the crosswinds and other weather conditions.
#-Link-Snipped-#According to the 45<sup>th</sup> Weather Squadron of the U.S Airforce Lt. Col. Patrick Barrett, everything seems to be favorable. The launch was originally scheduled in November last year but was pulled down on April 29 due to the hydraulic failure. The final launch of this shuttle has been nomenclatured as STS-134 and is the second last mission of the America’s 30 year old space shuttle programme. Though rehabilitating in Houston, Giffords was flown to Florida for the launch where she would be cheering her husband. During the 16 day mission, the crew is planning to make 4 space walks to the International Space Station.
The foremost and the biggest task for the crew is to deliver the particle detector called as Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 which costs $2 billion, other spare parts and two communication antennas. It will help the researchers to study the formation of the universe. Moreover a lot of mysteries like that of the elusive dark matter and strange matter can be solved if the high-tech gadgets work satisfactorily as claimed by the scientists.
A nation wide contest was held to decide the name of this very space shuttle. Out of the 6,154 entries received, NASA chose the name “ENDEAVOUR†for the shuttle. The provenance of the name is the 18<sup>th</sup> century ship which was captained by the British explorer James Cook. Let us have our fingers crossed, for the launch on Monday still has a 30 percent probability of ship not being launched on time which pragmatically nobody wants
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#-Link-Snipped-#According to the 45<sup>th</sup> Weather Squadron of the U.S Airforce Lt. Col. Patrick Barrett, everything seems to be favorable. The launch was originally scheduled in November last year but was pulled down on April 29 due to the hydraulic failure. The final launch of this shuttle has been nomenclatured as STS-134 and is the second last mission of the America’s 30 year old space shuttle programme. Though rehabilitating in Houston, Giffords was flown to Florida for the launch where she would be cheering her husband. During the 16 day mission, the crew is planning to make 4 space walks to the International Space Station.
The foremost and the biggest task for the crew is to deliver the particle detector called as Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 which costs $2 billion, other spare parts and two communication antennas. It will help the researchers to study the formation of the universe. Moreover a lot of mysteries like that of the elusive dark matter and strange matter can be solved if the high-tech gadgets work satisfactorily as claimed by the scientists.
A nation wide contest was held to decide the name of this very space shuttle. Out of the 6,154 entries received, NASA chose the name “ENDEAVOUR†for the shuttle. The provenance of the name is the 18<sup>th</sup> century ship which was captained by the British explorer James Cook. Let us have our fingers crossed, for the launch on Monday still has a 30 percent probability of ship not being launched on time which pragmatically nobody wants
Image credit:
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