22 March 2007

NASA announced yesterday that it is postponing a decision on when the next Shuttle flight will take place until early next month. STS-117 was to have launched last week but the Shuttle and its external tank were both damaged by hail while sitting on the launch pad and had to be taken back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repair. The current launch window runs from late April through 21 May. If the current ET can be salvaged they could launch within that window, probably in May. A new ET will be delivered to the Cape on 10 April and it may be more efficient to swap the tank out but that will delay the launch to the next launch window sometime in June. In any case, NASA will likely only get four Shuttle launches in this year but they don't expect that that will affect the 13 flights remaining to complete construction on the ISS before the retirement of the Shuttle in 2010.

There was also damage to the heat shielding tiles on the port wing but I haven't seen anything saying that they have been replaced.

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The weather is not looking propitious for a successful Messier Marathon this year. We are moving into rain through Saturday that will probably result in Public Observing at Columbia being canceled tomorrow night. And the Moon is continuing to wax and staying up later into the night so will be interfering.

When March has April weather, April will have March weather.