Sunday At The Earliest

Sunday At The Earliest: "

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - NASA managers won't try to launch the space shuttle Discovery until Sunday at the earliest, as ground crews try to fix a serious hydrogen leak that developed today as they tried to fill the external tank.

NASA TV

The mission could slip until March 17 and perhaps even later, which begins to impinge on plans to double the International Space Station crew from three to six in May. Discovery is set to deliver a fourth big solar array wing and a replacement urine distiller that are both needed to prepare the ISS for a six-person crew.

The problem appeared when the shuttle's liquid hydrogen tank was within 20 minutes of being full for a 9:20 p.m. EDT launch today. When a' valve was opened to allow excess hydrogen to vent into a' flare stack on Pad 39A, three different sensors in the area detected the leak, according to Launch Director Mike Leinbach.

The leak, which apparently was connected with the dropping temperatures as' the supercold liquid hydrogen level reached the vent line near' the top of' the tank, persisted through several cycles of the valve.

'We're sure we have some hardware issues,' Leinbach said.

Launch managers will work through the night mapping a plan for isolating the leak and fixing it, with a report on their timeline due Friday afternoon. But it will take 20 hours just to finish draining the tank so it can be safely repaired, which makes Sunday the earliest possible launch date.

That could slip to Monday or even Tuesday, the latest Discovery could launch and still leave the station before the Russian Soyuz with the replacement ISS crew arrives. The 'Soyuz cutout' is driving the launch date because of the excessive crew workload that would be required if two vehicles were docked at the station at the same time.

But to get Discovery out of the way, the station program is prepared to trim the four spacewalks planned while' Discovery is docked down to two, or even the one that' will be required to attach the new solar array wing, according to Mike Moses, who chairs the STS-119 mission management team.

At the moment the military Wideband Global Satcom satellite is due' for launch from Cape Canaveral AFS on Saturday, and Moses hinted that the military mission may go ahead of the shuttle on the launch range if the shuttle launch slips into next week.

Weather was perfect for a launch tonight, and is expected to remain very good through the weekend. But by Tuesday conditions are' expected to deteriorate, and may prohibit a launch even if the leak is fixed.

If the shuttle launch is delayed for the Soyuz mission, the next opportunity would come at the end of the first week in April, which might not allow enough time to get the new systems running that are needed' to support the crew of six due to arrive the following month.

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(Via On Space.)

Debris Forces Station Crew To Take Shelter

Debris Forces Station Crew To Take Shelter: "Rocket motor debris passed within 4.5 kilometers of space station; NASA received warning from U.S. Strategic Command"

(Via AviationWeek.com Space Channel.)

Human skull piece found in Turkish 'acid well'

Human skull piece found in Turkish 'acid well': "Investigators discovered part of a human skull and other remains at a site in southeastern Turkey where the bodies of Kurdish victims of alleged extrajudicial killings are suspected to have been doused in acid and buried, Turkey's state news agency was reporting Friday.

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(Via CNN.com.)

Shuttle launch scrubbed due to fuel leak

Shuttle launch scrubbed due to fuel leak: "The planned Wednesday night launch of space shuttle Discovery has been cancelled due to an apparent leak in the giant external fuel tank, the Kennedy Space Center said.

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(Via CNN.com.)

Guantanamo Detainees Admit Pride In 9-11 Attacks

The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

The document, which may be released publicly on Tuesday, uses the Arabic term for a consultative assembly in describing the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and it says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document that were read to a reporter by a government official who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The document is titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations,” the military judge at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp said in a separate filing, obtained by The New York Times, that describes the detainees’ document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

President Obama halted the military proceedings at Guantánamo in the first days after his inauguration, and the five men’s case is on hiatus until the government decides how it will proceed.

Several of the men have earlier said in military commission proceedings at Guantánamo that they planned the 2001 attacks and that they sought martyrdom. The strategic goal of the five men in making the new filing, which reached the military court on March 5, was not clear.

In their filing, the men describe the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks and the killing of Americans as a model of Islamic action, and say the American government’s accusations cause them no shame, according to the excerpts read by the government official.

“To us,” the official continued reading, “they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor.”

It appears that the men wrote the document at meetings they are permitted to conduct periodically at the detention camp without lawyers.

In his brief court order describing the filing, the military judge who has been handling the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley of the Army, said the men sought no specific legal action. Judge Henley ordered that the filing be released immediately, but officials said objections from lawyers for two of the men had held up release Monday.

All five of the men have said they want to represent themselves, but in the case of these two men, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the military judge had not yet determined their competency when the proceedings were halted.