The upcoming launch of the shuttle Endeavour was delayed by three days due to a conflict with a classified military launch at Cape Canaveral.
The shuttle Endeavour, originally set to launch on May 16, will now launch at 6:30 am EDT on Sunday, May 19. An unspecified military launch would be using the range on the 16th, according to NASA officials.
No information was given on the military launch, although Reuters reported that a test launch of an American or British Trident ballistic missile from a submarine off the coast was likely to take place.
Endeavour will spend ten days in orbit on mission STS-77. The shuttle will carry the SPACEHAB experiment module so that the crew can perform a number of experiments related to microgravity. The shuttle will also deploy and retrieve the Spartan 207 satellite, which will test the deployment of an inflatable antenna.
As on other flights, Endeavour will carry a number of Get Away Special (GAS) payloads. One such "GAScan" is an experiment by the Caltech chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). Their experiment, GAMCIT, will search for gamma-ray bursts to look for clues about their origins.
The DC-XA, a NASA-modified version of the original DC-X test vehicle, will return to flight in a series of tests at White Sands Missile Range starting May 17.
The flight tests come after a series of successful test firings of the DC-XA's engines, including two tests within six hours of each other on May 4. One test firing was aborted on May 1 due to a software glitch.
"Friday's one-minute-long flight will begin validation of new reusable launch vehicle components such as the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks constructed of light-weight, high-strength materials," said Dave Schweikle, DC-XA program manager for McDonnell Douglas. "It will be the first time that the tank's materials and construction will be tested under actual flight conditions."
The DC-XA vehicle was extensively modified after NASA took over the vehicle from the Air Force last July. A composite hydrogen tank and Russian-built aluminum-lithium alloy oxygen tank were installed, as well as changes with the vehicle's auxiliary propulsion system and auxiliary power unit.
As the BMDO-sponsored DC-X rocket, the vehicle flew eight times between August 1993 and July of last year. The DC-X demonstrated that many key aspects of proposed single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicles, such as the ability to hover, flip over from a reentry attitude to landing attitude, and land vertically.
NASA plans to use the DC-XA to test the performance of new lightweight composite materials and alloys. If the new materials do work, their application to a full-fledged reusable launch vehicle would save a considerable amount of mass that could instead be carried into orbit as payload.
The European Space Agency gave its approval May 8 to continue with final preparations for the maiden launch of the new heavy-lift Ariane 5 booster later this month.
Officials from ESA and CNES, the French space agency, received a final launcher qualification report on the Ariane 5 on May 8 and approved it after a presentation. The approval cleared the way for integrating the satellite payload with the rocket and other plans.
Following a final launch readiness report on May 24 and 25, the launch of the Ariane 5 is scheduled for the morning of Thursday, May 30. It will be the first of two launches of the new powerful booster this year.
The next Ariane launch scheduled is a standard Ariane 4 booster, scheduled for a May 15 liftoff. The booster will carry into orbit an Indonesian and an Israeli communications satellite. The Israeli satellite, Amos-1, is the nation's first commercial satellite.
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