NASA helps with clues in De Jesus abduction

When law officers investigating the abduction of a Pearland woman turned to NASA for help in improving images captured by a fast-food restaurant’s security camera, they tapped into expertise the space agency has developed over decades of spotting potentially deadly flaws in space vehicles.
Brazoria County Sheriff’s Capt. Chris Kincheloe expressed optimism the enhancements of photos taken by a camera at a

Whataburger at 7229 W. Belfort may prove pivotal in identifying a man driving Susana De Jesus’ 2008 Cadillac after her Feb. 2 abduction from the parking lot of a Pearland-area clothing store.
The photos show a black or Hispanic man wearing a red T-shirt with writing on the back. The awkward movement of the man’s gloved hands in the security tape led authorities to believe he might have a distinctive tattoo he was attempting to conceal.

De Jesus, 37, was not visible in the car.
Tracy Calhoun of NASA’s Image Science and Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center said her department was created after the 1986 explosion of space shuttle Challenger. The laboratory is charged with scrutinizing astronauts’ photos of space vehicles for evidence they have been damaged.

“When we find anything that looks abnormal, we apply skills and laboratory tools to extract as much information as we can,” she said. “We look at lengths and depths. If something is moving, we try to extract the velocity.”
The laboratory, which works extensively with the international space station, shuttle program and Constellation project to return astronauts to the moon, gained added impetus after space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry in February 2003.

That vehicle and its crew perished when protective heat tiles were damaged by insulation that broke free from the craft on takeoff.
In the past 15 to 20 years, Calhoun said, the laboratory has assisted law enforcement agencies in enhancing images gathered in about 50 investigations. One one occasion, they clarified the image of a bloody fingerprint found on a blanket. In another, they reassembled snippets of a passing auto — captured by a camera positioned in a narrow space between buildings — into a comprehensive photo of the suspect vehicle.

The NASA lab entered the De Jesus case at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is assisting the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department in its investigation.
Tapes from surveillance cameras such as the one at Whataburger often don’t give laboratory staff much to work with.

“They have a low frame rate and low resolution,” Calhoun said. “So what we do is apply programs in the laboratory. Sometimes we go to Photoshop. We use software to bring out the details if there’s poor exposures and the images initially look dark. We also do sharpening if there’s a little fuzz. ... We use pretty common tools, but we have very skilled people.”

allan.turner@chron.com

Faulty Valve Causes Shuttle Postponement

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- During a thorough review of space shuttle Discovery's readiness for flight, NASA managers decided Friday that more data and possible testing are required before launching the STS-119 mission to the International Space Station.

Engineering teams have been working to identify what caused damage to a flow control valve on shuttle Endeavour during its November 2008 flight.

"We need to complete more work to have a better understanding before flying," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington who chaired Friday's Flight Readiness Review. "We were not driven by schedule pressure and did the right thing. When we fly, we want to do so with full confidence."

The shuttle has three flow control valves that channel gaseous hydrogen from the main engines to the external fuel tank. Teams also have tried to determine the consequences if a valve piece were to break off and strike part of the shuttle and external fuel tank.

The Space Shuttle Program has been asked to develop a plan to inspect additional valves similar to those installed on Discovery. This plan will be reviewed during a meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 25. Afterward, the program may consider setting a new target launch date.

For more information about the Space Shuttle Program, including a fact sheet about the flow control valves, visit:

Search continues for missing Dr. Zella

February 25, 2009

The Montgomery County Pct. 1 Constable’s Office Dive Team joined Texas Equusearch on Monday in their quest to find Dr. Stephen Zella, who disappeared while kayaking in Clear Lake on Friday morning. Authorities said a passerby alerted the nearest kayaker after seeing a man who appeared to be drowning, and the second man tried to find Zella, but found his empty kayak instead. The 38-year-old doctor is a Clear Lake resident.

Multiple agencies responded to assist in the search on Friday, including area fire departments, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Marine Division and the US Coast Guard. Texas Equusearch joined the effort the next morning, at the request of law enforcement, and later solicited the assistance of the Pct. 1 Dive Team. Dive Master Vernon Miller readily agreed. The two entities have worked together many times in the past, making numerous recoveries under the worst of conditions.

Strong winds and excessive debris from Hurricane Ike on the floor of the lake have increased the difficulty of the task, even for the experienced and elite group that is conducting the dives and using sonar equipment in the search.

The Texas Equusearch website has a daily posting of their progress in the search and regarding the need for volunteers. The page says the organization’s founder, Tim Miller, has promised Zella’s family that Texas Equusearch will not give up.
A heartbreaking message from Zella's children appears on the site with the updates.

The search will continue today.

To learn more about the Zella search, visit:
Texas Equusearch

Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.

TXDOT closing Nasa Road 1 For Study

By Lee McGuire / 11 News
On March 4, TxDOT will bring down the Nasa Road 1 overpass in Webster. At the same time, the City of Houston will launch a traffic study to measure what’s wrong in Clear Lake.

“I know it’s going to get ugly because they’re completely redoing the freeway out here,” said Forrest Gregg.

Gregg is a florist and said he spends at least four hours a day delivering flowers.

He said Clear Lake’s side streets are constantly clogged. Some city leaders agree.

“During the day it’s even horrible,” said Houston City Councilmember Mike Sullivan. “We’re getting complaints constantly about how bad traffic is -- congestion, road conditions, lights not being synchronized.”

Turn lanes and traffic lights are relatively easy to fix, say experts.

They say that the study should show city planners where the bottlenecks are located. Clear Lake isn’t the only target area.

The Houston Public Works Department is reportedly getting ready to launch similar studies across Houston. They're looking at areas where a lot of people have moved in over the last few years.

“A lot of the time, the people who set the signals don’t even live around here. They don’t know what’s going on,” said Gregg.

Houston’s traffic experts say the study should wrap up by late summer.

NASA satellite in trouble

CNN) -- NASA said early Tuesday that it failed to launch a satellite which would have monitored greenhouse gases to study how they affect the Earth's climate.

The rocket carrying the satellite launched at 1:55 a.m. PT (4:55 a.m. ET) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but the "payload fairing failed to separate," according to a statement on NASA's Web site.

The problems occurred several minutes into the launch.

"We have declared a launch contingency, meaning that we did not have a successful launch tonight," said George Diller, an agency spokesman.

Project crew members on the ground were trying to determine the cause. NASA scheduled a news conference for later in the morning to provide more details.

The $273 million satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, would have collected "precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere" to help better forecast the changes in carbon dioxide "and the effect that these changes may have on the Earth's climate." E-mail to a friend | Mixx it | Share

Texas Fireball Found?

UNT astronomers say they found 2 samples of meteor
By REGINA L. BURNS
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS — Two samples of fresh material the "size of large pecans" from a meteor that alarmed numerous residents when it streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday have been found by two University of North Texas astronomers in a pasture east of the small town of West.

"The pieces that we found have beautiful ablation crust. And it's black like charcoal. Underneath this crust the color of the rock is concrete like gray," said Ron DiLulio, director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas in Denton.

DiLulio and Preston Starr, UNT's observatory manager, said they found the pieces Wednesday about 5 p.m. after starting their search from Fort Worth at 3 a.m. using calculations from all of the calls they had received.

DiLulio said they had just about given up looking and were driving back when a friend called and asked to meet them at a certain intersection. They said that coincided with conversations they had had earlier that day with citizens at a restaurant.

"We decided rather than try to get permission from landowners, there would be pieces in a line that would spread out a mile across. We decided to just do the county roads and we just started walking down that road and it's fairly easy to see. It jumped out at us within 15 minutes," DiLulio said.

"We came back to where our gut instinct told us," Starr said. He said the McLennan County sheriff and deputies confirmed what citizens had told them.

"The sheriff told his deputy to take us out there," DiLulio said.

The astronomers placed the samples in ZipLoc bags to keep out the air. They plan to transfer the samples to membrane cases and take them to the university for additional study.

People on Sunday reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky and DiLulio said the reason it created such a fireball was because the meteor expanded and broke into pieces.

The pair said they were not alone in the search and ran into others including "a commercial meteorite hunter and we wanted to get there so we could have it first for science," DiLulio said.

Starr said the pair had been gathering information since they initially learned of the meteor's appearance.

"We did a lot of pre-planning. We looked at the angles of what they saw in the sky and we were able to map it all out. We put a plan together and we drove around small country roads. Texas has lots of small farm to market roads," Starr said.

DiLulio said he thinks there are larger pieces still to be found.

"We feel that there are probably several hundred pieces. What happens when these things fall — they may break apart. We want to find these early and study the primitive material before our atmosphere affects them," DiLulio said

He said the pair planned on returning to the areas where they had searched.

"Everytime we find one we mark where it is on the map and we can measure how much material actually hit the surface of the earth," DiLulio said.

West is about 70 miles south of Dallas.

Olson meets with Boeing employees on aeronautical future

U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, of District 22, meets with Boeing employees Monday afternoon to talk about his hopes for more NASA funding.


By YVETTE OROZCO
Updated: 02.18.09
President Obama’s stimulus package passed this weekend after having been opposed by most Republicans in Congress.

One of those Republicans in opposition, Pete Olson, representing the Texas’ 22nd congressional district, met with Boeing-NASA employees on Monday afternoon.

“I voted against the stimulus bill,” said Olson. “I hope it works for our nation’s sake, but we’re throwing an awful lot of money and I don’t know how many jobs will be added to our economy.”

Before he spoke with the media, Olson met with Boeing-NASA employees in a scheduled town hall meeting, addressing his hopes for the future of aeronautical research and exploration.

The freshman congressman is the ranking member on the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, which has investigative authority in issues regarding NASA, aeronautical science research, space law, and space commercialization, making him the top Republican in the House on Space and NASA issues.

The stimulus package designates $1 billion for NASA, but that came after a compromise.

The House version of the bill originally slated $600 million with the Senate adding $900 million, but the final version was a compromise of $1 billion.

For Boeing-NASA, said Olson, the issue of funding is complicated by the president’s own trajectory throughout his campaign and election regarding support for funding, which Olson characterized as inconsistent.

More recently, said Olson, Obama has supported an increase in that funding.

“I hope we can keep him at his word because it is critically important, not just for this area, but for this country,” he said.

Olson, a former Navy pilot, spoke of having recently met individually with one Boeing employee.

“The only reason he’s here is because he wants to be a part of human beings going back to the moon and beyond,” said Olson. “You can’t underestimate how much technological innovations and manned space-flight from NASA can inspire.”

Olson has recently been speaking at similar meetings throughout his district, which includes south Pasadena and Deer Park, along with the south-central part of the Houston-Baytown-Sugarland regions. The district covers Rosenberg, La Marque, parts of Missouri City, Pearland, Fort Bend, Galveston, Brazoria and Harris counties.

While his main talking points remained focused on NASA’s future, Olson also elaborated on the uncertainty among employees amid predictions of economic instability and job insecurity.

“There is some apprehension,” he said. “Our economy is in a recession and those things concern people and there is an uncertainty.”

20 apartments destroyed

Originally published on the Chron.


A wind-blown fire destroyed 18 to 20 apartments and seriously damaged a fire truck Thursday evening at a Clear Lake-area apartment complex, authorities said.
No injuries were reported from the two-alarm blaze, but a stiff south wind blew flames into the cab of a fire truck, inflicting serious damage, said Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Tommy Dowdy.

“The wind was so bad we were worried about the complex across the street,” Dowdy said.
Ammunition in the apartment of a Houston police officer who lives at the Wolf Creek apartments at 6100 Space Center Blvd. also caused a commotion, exploding during the blaze.

“It’s common for an officer to have ammunition in his apartment,” Dowdy added.
The officer is on vacation and all of his belongings were destroyed, he said.
The fire was reported about 6:30 p.m.

STS-119 set

Space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 crew is set to fly the S6 truss segment and install the final set of power-generating solar arrays to the International Space Station.

The S6 truss, with its set of large U.S. solar arrays, will complete the backbone of the station and provide one-fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of six.

The two solar array wings each have 115-foot-long arrays, for a total wing span of 240 feet. They will generate 66 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to provide about 30 2,800-square-foot homes with power.

Commander Lee Archambault will lead Discovery's crew of seven, along with Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Wakata will replace Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus, who will return to Earth with the STS-119 crew. Wakata will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 18 and 19, and return to Earth with the STS-127 crew.

Discovery's STS-119 mission to the International Space Station is targeted to lift off no earlier than Feb. 27.

Texas Fireball Not A UFO - Just A Meteor

DALLAS — The fireball that blazed across the Texas sky and sparked numerous weekend calls to authorities was probably a meteor and not falling space junk from last week's satellite collision, officials said Monday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the fireball appeared to be a natural phenomenon, and a University of North Texas astronomer said more specifically that it was probably a pickup truck-sized meteor with the consistency of concrete.
The object was visible Sunday morning from Austin to Dallas and into East Texas. In Central Texas, the Williamson County sheriff's office received so many emergency calls that it sent a helicopter aloft to look for debris from a plane crash.
The FAA backed off its weekend statement that the fireball possibly was caused by falling debris from colliding satellites plummeting into the atmosphere. That assertion was rebuffed Sunday when a major with U.S. Strategic Command said there was no connection to the sightings and last week's collision of satellites from the U.S. and Russia.

The FAA had a weekend warning out to pilots to watch out for satellite debris but rescinded the warning Sunday, FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said.
Herwig acknowledged Monday that "we are no longer saying it might have been satellite debris."

Note: The photo attached to this post is NOT the Texas fireball.

Photo by Dale Stanton

"We suspect a natural phenomenon, but we are not the experts on that," Herwig said.
Preston Starr, the observatory manager at the University of North Texas, said he believes the object was a carbonaceous meteor "about the size of a pickup truck. It was a slow mover, and probably has the consistency of concrete."
Such objects bombard the planet on a daily basis. Objects as large as the one spotted Sunday enter the atmosphere about eight or 10 times a year, Starr said. It was probably moving between 15,000 miles per hour and 40,000 miles per hour and was likely visible for several seconds.

The object was unlikely to be satellite debris, Starr said, because the trajectory was wrong and debris would be too small and too slow for so many to have seen it during the day.
"It would have looked like a blip, and nobody would be able to notice if it were a daytime entry," Starr said.
Starr described the object as a bolide, a term used by astronomers to describe a meteor with an exploding brightness. That's the description given by those who saw the fireball, saying it was reddish orange and left a trail of white smoke.
Starr said it's likely the meteor struck ground somewhere. He doubted it would have left a crater and guessed what's left of it would be smaller than the size of a fist.

Emergency operators in at least six East Texas counties received calls about the object. Several people in the Dallas area reported seeing the meteor. In Williamson County, north of Austin, a sheriff's department helicopter spent 45 minutes searching for a possible plane crash after receiving numerous calls about a fireball.
"That's why we don't have any doubt that what they saw is what they saw. We are fairly certain that whatever happened, happened," said Detective John Foster, a spokesman for the Williamson County sheriff's department. "We believe them. But we couldn't find it. We tried."

Update: Falling Fireball May Not Be Space Debris.

There are now conflicting reports that the fireball over Texas may or may not be debris from the recent satellite collision.

Here's the latest:


A mysterious fireball streaked across the Texas sky yesterday prompting a flood of calls to the emergency services and news organisations.

The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office sent up a helicopter to look around after witnesses said that they had seen what appeared to be falling debris from a plane crash at around 11am local time.

Sheriff's spokesman John Foster said the search was inconclusive. “We don’t doubt what people saw; but authorities found nothing."

“We don’t know what it was,” confirmed Roland Herwig, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

"The tail was intact for several seconds, then became segmented," said Mr Lyon. "I conclude that the single object became several objects during incineration aftermath - a white tail remained visible for up to 10 minutes."

Matthew Donelon of Georgetown said he saw a very bright orangey-purple object dart across the northern sky.

"The object left a smoke trail for a distance and then went out," said Mr Donelon. "The smoke trail lasted for more than 15 minutes before it dispersed. There was no sound, so I estimate it was some distance away."

The US Strategic Command said it did not believe there was any connection with an incident last Tuesday when two satellites from the US and Russia collided, creating a cloud of space junk.

“There is no correlation between the debris from that collision and those reports of re-entry,” said Major Regina Winchester, with STRATCOM.

The FAA issued a warning to pilots on Saturday to be aware of possible space debris after the collision between US and Russian communication satellites.

The chief of Russia’s Mission Control says clouds of debris from the collision will circle Earth for thousands of years and threaten numerous satellites.

Some experts are now suggesting that the fast-moving Texas object was a meteor that burned up in the earth's atmosphere.

Fireballs & Sonic Booms Rock South East Texas

Sonic booms and at least one fireball in the sky were reported in Texas on Sunday, less than a week after two satellites collided in space and a day after the Federal Aviation Administration asked U.S. pilots to watch for "falling space debris," authorities said.

There were no reports of ground strikes or interference with aircraft in flight, FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said.

Herwig told CNN the FAA received no reports from pilots in the air of any sightings but the agency recieved "numerous" calls from people on the ground from Dallas, Texas, south to Austin, Texas.

Video shot by a photographer from News 8 TV in Austin showed what appeared to be a meteor-like white fireball blazing across a clear blue sky Sunday morning. The photographer caught the incident while covering a marathon in Austin.

On Saturday, the FAA told pilots through its routine notification system that "a potential hazard may occur due to re-entry of satellite debris into the earth's atmosphere." The notice did not specify a time or location. Video Watch video of meteor-like fireball »

Herwig said most of the reports the FAA received came in about midday Sunday in an area of Texas from Dallas south to Austin.

He said he was not certain where the information that sparked the FAA notification came from, but it was "probably from NORAD," or the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which tracks man-made objects in space. Calls to NORAD headquarters in Colorado were not immediately returned.

Lisa Block, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said her agency had received calls from residents surprised by sonic booms about 11 a.m. She said calls came from an area from Dallas to Houston.
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Last week, the Russian and U.S. space agencies said two satellites, one Russian and one American, collided about 496 miles (800 kilometers) above Siberia, Russia.

The collision on Tuesday produced two large debris clouds, NASA said. The satellites collided at 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) per second, producing 500 to 600 pieces of space debris, the U.S. Strategic Command said.

NASA's Shuttle Program Looks Ahead to Friday's Review Meeting

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:41:45 PM CST

NASA's Space Shuttle Program managers will hold a special meeting Feb. 13 to review flow control valve data and determine whether to proceed with the Joint Flight Readiness, or FRR, scheduled for Feb. 18. The official launch date will be announced at the end of the FRR, although for planning purposes, liftoff currently is scheduled for no earlier than Feb. 22.

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians continue to prepare space shuttle Discovery for its STS-119 mission to the International Space Station. Workers will complete final ordnance installation, which now is planned for Saturday.

Today, the STS-119 crew members are involved with administrative activities at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Thunderstorms bring wind - little rain and damage.

Originally published in The Chron

A line of thunderstorms that moved through the Houston area overnight knocked out power in some neighborhoods, but brought little relief from the dry spell that has gripped southeast Texas.
No serious injuries have been reported, but gusting winds brought down a tree that badly damaged a mobile home in the Spring area early today. The residents got out safely.

About 95,000 CenterPoint Energy customers lost power during the storms, but spokeswoman Krystal Castro-Saavedra said electricity had been restored to all but about 4,000 customers, mostly in the Greenspoint and Humble areas, by daybreak.
The storms carried less of a punch than those that hit farther north on Tuesday and early today, including tornados that were blamed for at least eight deaths in Oklahoma and wind gusts that reached 88 mph in north Texas. Tornado watches were issued today for Mississippi, north-central Louisiana, southeast Arkansas and parts of Missouri and Tennessee.
The storms went through the central part of Harris County between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. before quickly moving out. Rainfall amounts of up to a half-inch were measured around the Houston area.

“This was not a major rainfall event. It didn’t have enough time to dump a lot of rain,” said Robert Van Hoven, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.
The thunderstorms moved in with winds of about 40 mph, the weather service reported, and gusts of about 55 mph were measured at the airport in Sugar Land.
“We did have some reports of wind damages,” Van Hoven said.
Officials in the tiny Kendleton Independent School District in Fort Bend County canceled classes today because of a power failure.
While the overnight rainfall was a welcome change from the recent pattern, Van Hoven said dry weather will return today and at least for the near future.

“You’re going to need quite a bit more rain than this” to relieve the drought conditions that have led to warnings about outdoor fires, he said.

Today’s high temperatures will be in the low 70s, with northwest winds of 10-15 mph, Van Hoven said. Tonight will remain mostly clear with lows in the mid-40s and northwest winds around 5 mph, officials said.
The Houston area’s next chance for rain will come on Friday, when forecasters expect a 20 percent chance of showers.
mike.glenn@chron.com

Space Shuttle set to launch on Feb 19

Space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 crew is set to fly the S6 truss segment and install the final set of power-generating solar arrays to the International Space Station.

The S6 truss, with its set of large U.S. solar arrays, will complete the backbone of the station and provide one-fourth of the total power needed to support a crew of six.

The two solar array wings each have 115-foot-long arrays, for a total wing span of 240 feet. They will generate 66 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to provide about 30 2,800-square-foot homes with power.

Commander Lee Archambault will lead Discovery's crew of seven, along with Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Wakata will replace Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus, who will return to Earth with the STS-119 crew. Wakata will serve as a flight engineer for Expeditions 18 and 19, and return to Earth with the STS-127 crew.

Discovery's STS-119 mission to the International Space Station is targeted to lift off no earlier than Feb. 19.

Source: NASA

NOAA N Prime launches!

3.2.1 and Liftoff of NOAA-N Prime!

The Delta II carrying NOAA-N Prime lifted off Feb. 6, 2009 at 2:22 a.m. Pacific time, 5:22 a.m. Eastern time from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The countdown proceeded smoothly throughout the night and early morning. Neither the spacecraft nor the United Launch Alliance Delta II launch vehicle experienced any technical issues, and the weather conditions remained favorable.

The countdown and launch are managed by the NASA Launch Services Program office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Source: NASA

Launch Scrubbed/Now set for Thursday

The launch of the NOAA-N Prime weather satellite was scrubbed 2 a.m. PST Wednesday when a launch pad gaseous nitrogen pressurization system failed.

This system maintains pressurization and purges to various systems of the Delta II rocket prior to launch. Immediate repair to this system is being undertaken.

The next launch attempt will be no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 5 at 2:22 a.m. PST., weather permitting.

The launch team will gather mid-day Wednesday to review the facility readiness and the weather forecast for launch.

NASA to Set Official STS-119 Launch Date

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:53:30 AM CST

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA managers are engaged in the executive-level Flight Readiness Review, or FRR, to evaluate Discovery’s readiness for launch.

An announcement will be made at the conclusion of the meeting and broadcast no earlier than 6 p.m. EST on NASA TV to set the mission's official launch date.

At Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A, technicians conducted leak checks on space shuttle Discovery's gaseous hydrogen, or GH2, flow control valves and performed space shuttle main engine flow through tests.

Installation of the ordnance that will separate the shuttle from the mobile launcher platform at the time of liftoff is on hold while an exposed wire located in the forward compartment of the spacecraft is repaired.

Meanwhile, the STS-119 crew members are in launch-countdown mode, which includes shifting sleep patterns and frequent medical exams. Later in the week, the astronauts will be preflight quarantined in Johnson Space Center's Astronaut Quarantine Facility in Houston to keep them isolated from potential infections.

STS-119 Mission Preps Move Forward
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:21:31 AM CST

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians installed space shuttle Discovery's gaseous hydrogen, or GH2, flow control valves Saturday. GH2 leak checks will be performed today. The GH2 valves are used to synchronize the gas pressure between the external fuel tank and the engines, creating an even flow.

Final installation of the ordnance that will separate the shuttle from the mobile launcher platform at the time of liftoff is scheduled to take place late tonight.

Communication checks were successfully conducted between Kennedy and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. After Discovery lifts off from Kennedy, responsibility of the shuttle is transferred to Johnson.

The STS-119 crew members are in launch-countdown mode, which includes shifting sleep patterns and frequent medical exams. Commander Lee Archambault and Pilot Tony Antonelli will fly to White Sands Space Harbor in Las Cruces, N.M., to practice landing techniques in NASA's shuttle training aircraft.

Later in the week, the astronauts will be preflight quarantined in Johnson's Astronaut Quarantine Facility to keep them isolated from potential infections.

Meanwhile, NASA managers are en route to Kennedy for tomorrow's executive-level Flight Readiness Review, or FRR, to evaluate Discovery’s readiness for launch.

An announcement will be made at the conclusion of the meeting and broadcast no earlier than 6 p.m. Tuesday on NASA TV to set the mission's official launch date.

The NOAA-N Prime Mission Launch Set For Wednesday

The NOAA-N Prime satellite, built for NASA by Lockheed Martin, will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world. NOAA-N Prime is the fifth and last in the current series of five polar-orbiting satellites with improved imaging and sounding capabilities.

The satellite will collect meteorological data and transmit the information to NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, which processes the data for input to the National Weather Service for its long-range weather and climate forecasts. Forecasters worldwide also will be able to access the satellite's images and data.

NOAA-N Prime has sensors that will be used in the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System to monitor for distress signals around the world.

Launch Preparations Update
The Flight Readiness Review for the Delta II and NOAA-N Prime spacecraft was successfully completed Jan. 29, with a countdown dress rehearsal conducted the following day. There are no issues or concerns to prevent final launch preparations.

One final milestone, the Launch Readiness Review, will be conducted today to assure all is ready to start the launch countdown operations tomorrow afternoon. The NOAA-N Prime polar orbiting weather satellite is enclosed in the Delta II payload fairing and is ready for launch.

The preliminary weather outlook for Feb. 4 has conditions forecast to be generally favorable for launch, but becoming less favorable the following day due to an approaching low pressure system.

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