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United States : SPACEX to continue preps for launch Monday [TendersInfo (India)](TendersInfo (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) International Space Station Program officials and representatives of SpaceX agreed to continue preparations for the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon cargo craft to the space station Monday from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., despite the failure Friday of a backup computer component that offers redundancy for commanding the Mobile Transporter rail car on the truss of the station. A final decision on whether to launch Dragon Monday will not be made until another status conference is performed Sunday morning. The component, called a multiplexer demultiplexer (MDM) is one of more than a dozen housed on the truss of the station that routes computer commands to various systems on the outpost. The failure Friday to a box called EXT-2, a backup box to a prime component in the S0 truss that measures 10.5 x 14.9 x 16.4 inches and weighs 50.8 pounds, occurred during a routine health check of the device. The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft was in the the grips of the Canadarm2 before being released May 31, 2012 during Expedition 31. The prime multiplexer continues to run flawlessly, and there has been no effect to station operations. The crew was informed of the problem and is in no danger, continuing its normal complement of research work and routine maintenance. A reboost of the station using the ISS Progress 53 thrusters was conducted Saturday as planned and placed the laboratory at the correct altitude for Soyuz crew landing and launch operations in May. Station program officials, flight controllers and teams of engineers are working to determine whether there is any risk to launching the SpaceX cargo craft Monday. They will evaluate whether the station has enough redundancy to permit the launch to proceed, which would result in Dragon arriving at the station Wednesday where it will be grappled and berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module by Expedition Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace (c) 2014 Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by Syndigate.info, an Albawaba.com company |