the misadventures of weather boy: December 2006

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Second attempt works

The second launch attempt for STS-116 worked as Discovery lifted off at 10/0147Z this evening. Landing is scheduled for 21/2117Z in Florida.

Takeoff image just as Discovery clears the tower. AP image by Chris O'Meara.

METAR KRDU 100251Z 23504KT 10SM CLR 00/M08 A3051 RMK SLP335

Labels: space

Thursday, December 07, 2006

STS-116 scrubbed tonight

Tonight's launch of Discovery was scrubbed when the launch window ran out of time. Glancing out the following observation:

METAR KTTS 080225Z 31008KT 10SM OVC055 16/06 A3019 RMK SLP223 8SC /8/ N3310/15 C3309/14 S3108/13

Overcast skies at 5,500 feet at the conclusion of the T-9 minute hold was enough to scrub things (they need a ceiling of 8,000 feet to launch). The clock was held at T-5 minutes to hope that things might clear up, but by 9:35 ET, time had run out (the launch window went until 9:40, and so T-5 minutes at 9:35 ET means that that is the latest time to resume the countdown).

Tomorrow may not be any better; surface winds are forecasted near 15kt (which implies that they'll be faster higher up). The next SMG landing forecast is at 06Z (1am), so it'll be an interesting outlook.

METAR KRDU 080151Z 31510G18KT 10SM BKN090 02/M08 A3023 RMK SLP240

UPDATE: They'll try again Saturday at 8:47pm ET (10/0147Z).

Labels: space