Rocket Tank for Christmas
From Florida Today
The barge Pegasus and ship Freedom Star, not Santa's sleigh and reindeer, are on track to deliver a Christmas gift to Kennedy Space Center.
A 15-story shuttle external tank departed Sunday from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
The roughly 900-mile voyage typically takes six days, placing the arrival at KSC "on or about Christmas day," according to a press release from tank manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
The tank, numbered ET-135, is set to help boost shuttle Discovery into orbit in March -- the second of five shuttle missions planned next year before NASA retires its fleet of three orbiters.
Tanks for the final three scheduled flights are targeted to be completed in February, May and June.
A spare tank for a rescue mission, if needed, is slated for delivery to NASA in September. The tank was partially complete when it was damaged during Hurricane Katrina.
Two tug boats departed Michoud on Sunday evening with ET-135 enclosed in the Pegasus barge.
The tank measures 154 feet long and 28 feet around. It weighs 58,500 pounds empty, and nearly 1.7 million pounds when fueled for flight with more than 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
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