A Wave-off

The northern end of the Shuttle Landing Facility's runway is lit for the Shuttle Training Aircraft, which was used to test weather conditions that would be experienced by the Shuttle during approach and landing.

The landing of the Discovery at the Shuttle Landing Facility (airfield) of the Kennedy Space Center was scheduled for Monday at 7:32 am. This meant I had to be at the News Center car park for dog sniff before 5:30 am, which in turn forced another early rise (3:30 am) to get there from Titusville.

It had been announced that the News Center would be open from 4:40 am to10 pm this day. The early opening was to accommodate the Discovery landing, and the evening opening the planned roll-out of the STS 132 stack from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad 39A.

Joining other journalists, we were bussed several kilometres to the Shuttle Landing Facility, arriving at 6:30 am. The press viewing area has a three story building midway along the runway, with the control tower rising even higher above it. In front of the building and to its left is a grassed area that is also available to the press for viewing the shuttle landing.

In the pre-dawn darkness television crews and photographers set up. Some television crews chose a ground position from where the countdown clock to landing time could be seen behind the presenter. To these folks getting shots of the actual shuttle was not important, because they could just switch in the vision from NASA TV, which had cameras in key positions to afford the spectacular approach and landing vision that we have come to know so well. With the shuttle imagery available from NASA TV, all the reporter had to do was provide background reporting and local "colour". Long cables snaked back from the grassy knoll to the outside broadcast vans parked on the sealed area 30 metres away. Extendable microwave masts raised ten metres above the vans sent the signal back towards Orlando.

There was a fair bit of cloud and a little bit of fog, but we were hopeful it would clear by landing time. The airport landing lights cast an ethereal effect on the thin fog, and several times the lights were switched from one end of the runway to the other. The Gulfstream Shuttle Training Aircraft, flown by an astronaut, made several test landing approaches, descending to about 50 metres before powering up the engines and ascending again.

Someone had set up a TV set with NASA TV. Using its snowy picture we could see the weather map. Many of the photographers became instant meteorologists, offering opinions on what the weather would do. The prospects were not good.

Sure enough, the 7:32 am landing was called off. Still, there was a second chance for a landing at 9:08 am. However, when the time came, at around 8 am to decide whether to close the payload bay doors, and do the deorbit orbital manoeuvring system engine firing, there was another wave-off. The Discovery would not be coming home today. Disappointed, we packed our gear and at 9:10 am bussed back to the News Center. They would try again on Tuesday morning.

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