Monday, April 19, 2010

STS-131 Set to Land Tuesday

After a Monday wave-off of both KSC landings for bad weather, STS-131 has several opportunities to land on Tuesday, starting early in the morning local time.

Weather permitting, Discovery is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center's shuttle landing facility Tuesday at 7:34 a.m., 40 minutes after sunrise. The second landing opportunity at Kennedy is at 9:08 a.m.  Edwards Air Force Base in California is expected to be called up as a possible landing site. The first landing opportunity at Edwards is at 9:01 a.m.

All of the KSC opportunities are on descending paths over much of the continental US, allowing many people an opportunity to see a pretty spectacular re-entry in a dark or early morning sky.  The Edwards opportunities go right down the West Coast, and may do similar.  The rain storm that is moving into California should not affect Edwards in this time frame.

Check web sites for which orbit will actually have a landing.  Also, a table of passes for your US city can be generated by entering orbit number and KSC or EDW somewhere on NASA's site at spaceflight.nasa.gov.