Big day for NASA today with both a space walk by space station astronauts and a shuttle-tanking test.
The shuttle is grounded until NASA can solve a problem with engine cut-off sensors. Engineers are hoping today?s test will provide them with additional data to solve the problem. If not, well things get real interesting, real fast.
And even if the shuttle can be flown, it doesn?t much matter unless problems with solar panels at the International Space Station can be fixed. What the shuttle does now is pretty much just haul up new pieces of the space station. Those new modules require electrical power. To get that power, the solar arrays have to be able to pivot and track the sun. Right now, the starboard side panels can?t do that. The space walk is designed to get more data to hopefully come up with a fix.
Oh, and all the while the clock is running. Shuttle operations are to end by September 30, 2010. Period. And no shuttle, no way up for all the pieces that NASA and its international partners have already built?
