Solid rocket booster flight data recorders activated. Standing by for the hand-off to Discovery's computers. T-31 seconds.
The hand-off has occurred. Discovery's computers now controlling.
Twenty-five. Firing chain is armed. Twenty.
Sound-suppression water system is active, being activated. Range safety systems armed. T-10 seconds, go for main engine start.
Seven. Six. Five. Three engines up and burning. Three. Two. One.
The STS-121 crew and Space Shuttle Discovery are going through final preparations for a journey to the International Space Station.
The countdown clock is ticking, and we're taking you behind the scenes.
From the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this is NASA's STS-121 mission webcast.
I'm your host, Stephanie Stilson. I'm the manager for the orbiter Discovery, and on behalf of all of us here at NASA,
thanks for joining us today. With launch day so close, the excitement is really building. The shuttle is out on Launch Pad 39B,
and Commander Steve Lindsey and his six crewmates are here getting ready for a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.
With us today is Bill Oefelein, a NASA astronaut who's preparing for an upcoming mission.
Bill, it's be great to get an astronaut's insight into STS-121. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for inviting me, Stephanie. It's very exciting to be here today.
You're in training to be the pilot on STS-116 in a few months. Now, that's a space station construction flight.
STS-121 is a station flight too, but it's a resupply mission. Can you explain the difference between those two types of missions?
Sure. STS-121 is, as you mentioned, a utility and logistics flight,
so they're taking up a lot of equipment and resupplying the space station.
And they're also doing a little bit of maintenance work on the space station itself,
whereas an assembly flight actually continues to expand and build onto the space station, which is what my mission is.
So that's the main difference, is the difference between taking up supplies like food and clothing,
and bringing back some of the old containers that are no longer needed, and doing some of the,
some maintenance on some things that might have broken. They're doing some of that.
And then an assembly flight like mine would be adding onto a truss segment or bringing up a new module.
Great. Well, there's a lot of public interest in this mission.
Let's take a couple of questions from some space fans over at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
I'm Jed from England. I was wondering when you're going to fly and what you're looking forward to.
Hi Jed. That's a great question. My flight is currently scheduled in December of this year,
and it's on the same vehicle, Discovery,that's actually out on the launch pad now.
So I'm not going to fly until those folks get back safely and Stephanie here can get the vehicle turned and ready for us to go in December.
So it's about 5-1/2 months from now. And by the way, we do have a,
a guy on my flight who was also born in England. He's an American citizen now, but Nick Patrick was born in England, as well.
Great. Well, let's take another question.
Hi. I'm Rebecca from Tennessee, and I want to know what they pack in the payload bay.
Hi Rebecca. Many things can go in the payload bay. The payload bay is a very big compartment, as you may have seen on the, on the orbiter.
In fact, it's so big, you can fit something the size of a school bus in there,
and on the order of maybe 50,000 pounds, so it can carry a lot. For this upcoming mission that's going up, as we talked about,
it's a logistics and kind of resupply flight, so they're taking up a big, pressurized cargo
compartment that has a bunch of gear and experiments and food and clothes that they're going to put onto the space station.
They're also taking up kind of, what's called a pallet, or just a, a platform that has some spare parts and some things they are
going to fix on the space station, as well. For my mission, for instance, we have another cargo compartment where we're going to
take up food and clothes, because we're going to actually pick up the person that's going up on this next mission and bring him back
down and swap him out, so that new person we're going to drop off, we need to have their clothes and,
and all the equipment that they need for their stay on the International Space Station. And then we're also taking up a part for the,
for the space station itself, to continue adding on. So many, many different types of things,
due to the size of the payload bay, can go up on the, on the shuttle.
Well, speaking of payloads, we have a video that shows how the Leonardo payload was prepared for flight. Let's watch.
Technicians begin loading racks of supplies and a new oxygen generator system into the Italian-built logistics module Leonardo.
After Leonardo's hatch is closed on April 26, it's time to move the payloads into Space Shuttle Discovery. In May, with Discovery's
launch date approaching, Leonardo and two cargo carriers are placed into a special transporter called the payload canister.
Then the payload canister and all of its cargo make the five-hour trek to Launch Pad 39B.
At the pad, the canister is lifted into a clean room called the payload changeout room.
The payloads are removed from the canister and transferred into Discovery's waiting payload bay.
Then the orbiter's massive payload bay doors are closed for flight,
sealing the payloads inside until Discovery reaches the International Space Station.
Bill, let's talk about all the training that astronauts go through to prepare for a space flight. In fact, we have another question.
Hi. My name is Madeline. I'm from Middleton, Wisconsin,
and I was just wondering how long the astronauts have been training for this mission.
That's a great question. Astronauts train for quite a long time before they get to go in space.
For this 121 crew that's getting ready to go up tomorrow, they're,
they've actually been training for a little over two years for this specific mission. All astronauts, when they first come to NASA,
they spend about a year, year and a half of, of time their first year, year and a half, of just training,
really not doing any other jobs and just learning about how the shuttle flies, and about the International Space Station,
and how to get from here to there, and what life is like and how to live up in space. And then we do some various support roles and help our
friends get up into space, and then it's finally our turn to go up on our mission. And for that, like I said, the 121 crew has spent two years.
I, myself, have been in training for almost 4-1/2 years for my mission.
As you said, astronauts go through years of training at Johnson Space Center in Houston, but they also train here at Kennedy.
What's it like to be here at the launch center and get "hands on" with the vehicle and all the flight hardware?
Well, it's certainly invaluable training to come here to see both the orbiter and the things that go in the payload bay.
Nowhere else can, can we actually see the flight hardware but here. So it's,
it's very necessary to come here and see all the interfaces and all the things that we have to deal
with when we're up in space to either resupply the space station itself or to continue the assembly.
The STS-121 crew was here recently for some important training called TCDT. Can you explain briefly what TCDT is?
Sure. In a nutshell, it's just a dress rehearsal for launch day. It, it stands for the terminal countdown demonstration test,
in which the crew comes down here for four, four days or so and they get all dressed up,
they go through the same motions as they would on launch day. They get dressed up, they take a bus out to the orbiter and the Launch Control
Center's manned up with all the people who'll be there on launch day. Of course, the vehicle's not ready to go.
There's no fuel in the big gas tank or anything yet. But the crew gets in there, and they go through their procedures.
And just prior to when an actual launch would occur, they stop the countdown at that point and the,
the crew gets out of the vehicle and practices some emergency escape things that they need to go through.
We have some video of the TCDT training. Could you take our audience through it and explain what activities and events we're seeing?
I would be happy to.
Here we see Steve Lindsey and his crew arriving for TCDT.
They came in on a Gulfstream aircraft and they're getting ready for a week of good training here at the Kennedy Space Center.
First, they'll go over to the astronaut crew quarters, and there they'll do a few briefings and, and maybe even grab a meal while the people
get manned up in the Launch Control Center and get the vehicle ready for the crew to, to ingress.
Approximately 4-1/2 hours prior or so, the crew is getting dressed up. Here we see Mike Fossum testing out his launch-and-entry suit.
These are the orange suits -- we sometimes call them the pumpkin suits -- that all astronauts wear during the launch, and also when they
come back to Earth, and they provide an extra margin of safety should the astronauts need that, in case something goes wrong at that point.
We check out the communication systems. We check out the pressurization systems. We check out the fit, make sure these suits are comfortable
because they're going to be in these suits for many, many hours from the time they get dressed
up here at astronaut crew quarters to the time they actually get to take them off up in space.
Once the suit fit is, is done and the astronauts are ready to go, they proceed in a convoy in a bus out to the launch pad.
There they take an elevator up to the 195-foot level and, carrying their helmets, they proceed on with the ingress of the, of the vehicle,
or the entry into the space shuttle. There's a lot of people there, they're shown in the white suits, that help the crew get dressed.
They put on some parachutes and some emergency oxygen bottles and some life preservers in case the
crew had to bail out over the water for some reason. And they get all those on while they're outside the vehicle,
and then they hop in and get strapped in. Once the practice launch count is complete, the crew practices getting
out of the vehicle in a safe manner. And here they're practicing for an emergency where they hop in a,
in a cart, one of six carts that wire down to these awaiting, this awaiting tank.
It's kind of a special tank that the astronauts get to practice drive. It's one of the fun parts of TCDT week,
and they drive it to a bunker about a mile away, and await further instructions on, on safety.
So it's something we've never had to do in reality, but something we practice to do just in case it's ever needed.
And the crew here is shown here ready to go after a great week of TCDT.
Well, that looks like a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun too. I think we have time for one more question.
Hi. I'm Elaina from Virginia Beach, and I was wondering what happens on launch day.
Great question. I lived in Virginia Beach a little bit. It's a great place. Launch day is a lot like we just discussed
for TCDT because TCDT is kind of like the dry run, a dress rehearsal for launch day. So the crew, they'll wake up, they'll have a meal,
and this crew actually is special, they get a couple meals because they've been waking up so early and launch is a little later in the day.
So a couple meals, get a quick photo opportunity, and then they'll start into work. And the commander and the pilot and the
mission specialist flight engineer, mission specialist 2, will receive a weather briefing where they'll learn not only about the
weather here in Florida and how that's going to affect the launch, but also weather across the ocean in some,
some places in Europe, in case we have to do what's called a Trans-Atlantic abort.
So it's a very thorough weather brief, and then from the weather brief, they'll go into that room that we saw for TCDT and
they'll get in their orange pumpkin suits. Once they're all suited up and ready to go, they'll proceed out into that bus, and the bus will
take them out to their launch vehicle and, just like they did in TCDT, they'll hop in the space shuttle, get strapped in.
They'll be there for several hours while the launch countdown proceeds and
all the folks in Launch Control Center make sure everything's ready to go. And then at T-0, light off the solid rockets and, and away they go.
Well, Bill, that's so interesting. Thank you for being with us today.
That's all the time we have for today's show. Many thanks to all those who proposed their questions.
Remember, you can be a part of launch day no matter where you are! Follow right along with the countdown on NASA's Launch Blog and on NASA TV.
To get to the blog, go to NASA’s main space shuttle page at nasa.gov/shuttle,
and you’ll find it linked in the right hand column, about halfway down the page.
Thanks for watching, and go, Discovery!