Space shuttle Discovery will spend another day in orbit

Monday, April 19, 2010

Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON – Space shuttle Discovery will spend another day in orbit after two landing opportunities at Kennedy Space Center in Florida were foiled by clouds and rain in the area. Forecasts call for Florida conditions to improve Tuesday and for generally good weather in California.

“We appreciate everything you [at Mission Control] have done,” Commander Alan G. Poindexter told Capcom Rick Sturckow. “We’ll be hopeful for better weather tomorrow.”

Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki will have two more opportunities to land at Kennedy on Tuesday, as well as three at Edwards Air Force base in California.

The first Kennedy opportunity Tuesday would see a deorbit burn at 5:28 a.m. CDT with a landing at 6:34 a.m. For the second opportunity the deorbit burn at 7:02 a.m. would lead to a landing 8:08 a.m.

For Edwards, the first opportunity deorbit burn would be at 6:56 a.m. with landing at 8:01 a.m. The next would have a deorbit burn at 8:30 a.m. and a landing at 9:35 a.m. while the third would begin with a deorbit burn at 10:05 a.m. leading to a landing at 11:11 a.m.

Discovery has enough consumables to remain in orbit until Wednesday. There are a total of six landing opportunities at the three U.S. landing sites that day.

Meanwhile, on the International Space Station, the Expedition 23 crew continues to situate equipment and supplies delivered on Discovery, and to conduct experiments into how the human body responds to long-duration spaceflight, and to characterize fire and combustion in zero gravity.