Space Shuttle Discovery STS-131 Mission

[Tron]

Shuttle Discovery is set to launch at 5:21 a.m. Eastern time on a supply mission to the ISS. This is the first of the last four missions of the Space Shuttle program. Launch coverage began on NASA-TV at 1:15 a.m. Eastern, including HD coverage on HQ-5.

Good luck and Godspeed, Discovery!

 

[qwert1515]

Thanks for the reminder, I might wake up
According to NASA's site the launch time is: 6:21 a.m. EDT.

 

[Tron]

Oops, I meant 5:21 Central, 6:21 Eastern ...

The Closeout Crew just closed Discovery's hatch. As of now, there are no issues (mechanical or weather) that would prevent the launch.

 

[qwert1515]

I'm up!
T-1:30

 

[chapelrun]

Cool Launch

Only three more launches after this one. Thanks for the heads up. :up

 

[Tron]

Looks like Discovery could use the help of a SatelliteGuy... Unfortunately, the Ku-Band antenna on the shuttle failed the self-test. This means limited video downlinks on NASA-TV. Hopefully, they'll be able to use the dish on the ISS to send down their daily HD video.

 

[Tron]

Well, looks like no Ku from the shuttle for the remainder of the mission. They are using ISS Ku while they are docked, but bandwidth seems to be limited. I would not expect to see much crew-shot HD, since they need the ISS Ku bandwidth for other, more important transmissions.

 

[Tron]

Both landing opportunities were scrubbed for Monday.

There are numerous landing opportunities this morning (Tuesday) at both KSC and Edwards. The first KSC opportunity is at 6:34 a.m. Central.

A note about the HD feeds... Apparently, they were able to downlink many HD highlights from the ISS KU-Band antenna. These have been playing constantly, along with Obama's speech at NASA, on HQ-5.

 

[phlatwound]

"Deorbit Burn Complete

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:10:11 AM CDT

Space shuttle Discovery completed its deorbit burn to slow the shuttle on its decent to landing at 9:08 a.m. EDT, two hours, 14 minutes after sunrise. This will be the 129th shuttle landing."

 

[ynnedibanez]

man, i wish i still had nasa

 

[phlatwound]

man, i wish i still had nasa

You can usually find the takeoffs and landings on CBS Newspath on 99W, believe I have seen them on 72W also, Ku-band that is.

Of course the C-band HD feed on 87W is the ultimate.

 

[ynnedibanez]

thanks Phlatwound!!

 

[Ilya]

You can always watch NASA TV on-line, or even on a PDA phone.

 

[Tron]

Last year, I installed my first C-Band dish just for the purpose of receiving the NASA-TV HD feed channel during the final missions of the space shuttle. Since the C-Band mux is directly from the source, even the SD feeds are of far higher quality than the one that was FTA on Dish Network. Then, there's the added plus of three SD channels instead of only one. At the time I erected the dish, the Dish Network uplink was still in the clear, and I had no idea it would soon disappear. In hindsight, I'm glad I got the 6 footer up and running when I did. It is really worth it!