It's been a while, so I figured I'd give y'all an update. Shuttle launch is still set for March 11th, at 2:28 am central time. It'll take the first part of the Japanese lab module to the space station. I gotta be in the control room 4 hours before launch so it looks like my schedule's gonna get messed up.

The April launch has slipped and is now scheduled for May 24th.

The August launch has slipped to August 28th. This is the shuttle mission going to the Hubble telescope to perform one last maintenance job. We've started to make required modifications to the "Blue" flight control room for this mission.

I'll be COD mission manager for the launch next week as the official mission manager will be on vacation. And yes - I'm still going to have surgery the following week to repair those 2 aneurysms.

We're still planning on me being the COD mission manager for the May flight. COD = center operations directorate Johnson Space Center. Each shuttle mission has about 25 mission managers for the different aspects of the mission.

Some trivia -

Control rooms -

"Red" flight control room - 2nd floor building 30M - used for training

"White" flight control room - 2nd floor building 30S - shuttle missions

"Blue" flight control room - 2nd floor building 30S - currently for Hubble mission

Flight Control Room #1 - 2nd floor building 30M - Int'l Space Station (24/7)

"Apollo" flight control room - 3rd floor building 30M - historical landmark - looks the same today as it did in 1969 for the moon landing

The Russians have their control room in 30S. The Canadians, Italians, Japanese, and the European Space Agency are in 30M.

Ok, I've killed enough time. Time to go to the daily meeting!

Tom

for the update.

As usual, you ROCK Major Tom!

I am so happy to hear that Hubble will get another mission. What an amazing amount of knowledge has come out of it. I was scrolling through the images on Space.com the other day and one could look all day and still not see everything that has come from the Hubble Telescope.

Thanks for giving us a peek in the window!

tom,

WHAT aneurysms? i missed something. hope it's not too serious.

i do have 1 Q about the space station tho.
how long can it stay in space? will it get too old to stay in orbit?

does everything that goes up have to come down?
just curious.

good luck with your surgery.