Discovery ship astronauts are not allowed to welcome the eve

The STS-116 astronauts taking off in December will not celebrate the new year on the space shuttle Discovery. The NASA agency even thought of launching one day earlier to ensure the shuttle would return to Earth before December 31.

The reason is simple: the train subsystems that were designed 30 years ago did not update the year change. So if the shuttle is on orbit on January 1, the on-board computer systems will display the 366th day while the clocks of the ground control system will return to 001.

NASA has always calculated so that this situation does not happen in orbit. ISS space station with newer equipment does not encounter this problem. The STS-116 mission, led by Commander Mark Polansky, may start on February 6 instead of December 7 and no later than December 17. Mission will last 11 days.

For the first time since resuming flights, Discovery will take off at night. After the Columbia ship accident, the investigating office asked the US Space Agency for shuttles to depart during the day to detect debris that could be dangerous to the insulation. NASA has limited this risk and confirmed that radar detection systems also work well at night.

(Photo: NASA)

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