Discussions - Updating hourly with breaking news, mission updates from NASA and worldwide space news reports, the Discussions section features myriad forums to talk about Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch processing operations, past and future missions, space-related current events and debates, alternative launch architectures, and much more. Free registration required.

Mission Documents and Video - Featuring a variety of NASA videos as well as training documentation and flight manuals from Project Mercury, Project Gemini, Project Apollo, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program and the Space Shuttle. Includes a complete set of S0007 countdown manuals, JSC flight procedures handbooks, and flight and launch rules manuals as well as mission specific flight data files. Free registration required.

Mission Transcript Collection - Aboard every manned United States spacecraft, from Project Mercury through Project Apollo, NASA installed tape recorders that captured nearly every word spoken by the astronauts during their history-making flights into space. For the first time ever, these transcripts from both the onboard tapes and those tape recordings made on the ground from the air-to-ground transmissions have been digitally scanned. Gathered in this special collection are 80 transcripts totaling nearly 45,000 pages of text that cover every US human spaceflight from the first human Mercury mission through the last lunar landing flight of Apollo 17. Free registration required.

Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are currently at Force Protection Condition ALPHA.

With smoke and steam rolling across the launch pad, a Delta IV rocket cleared the tower with the GOES-O satellite aboard the evening of June 27. Liftoff was at 6:51 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The first attempt to launch GOES-O, on June 26, was scrubbed due to thunderstorms in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral.

The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O was developed by NASA for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Each of the GOES satellites continuously provides observations of 60 percent of the Earth including the continental United States, providing weather monitoring and forecast operations as well as a continuous and reliable stream of environmental information and severe weather warnings.

Once in orbit, GOES-O will be designated GOES-14, and NASA will provide on-orbit checkout and then transfer operational responsibility to NOAA.

On Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center June 24, work continues on removing the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, on space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tank.

A hydrogen leak at the location during tanking for the STS-127 mission caused the launch attempts to be scrubbed on June 13 and June 17.

The GUCP will be examined to determine the cause of the hydrogen leak and repaired. The GUCP is the overboard vent to the pad and the flame stack where the vented hydrogen is burned off.

A "tanking test" is planned for Wednesday, July 1, starting at 7 a.m. EDT to ensure repairs were successful. Endeavour's external tank will be filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, just as it is before launch. NASA managers will hold a news conference following the test to discuss the results at approximately 1 p.m. The test will be shown live on NASA television.

Endeavour's next launch attempt is targeted for July 11 at 7:39 p.m. EDT.

At Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on June 20, the orbiter access arm, which ends in the White Room, have been removed.

The arm is being removed from the FSS for the pad's conversion as launch site for the Constellation Program's Ares I-X. The launch of the Ares I-X flight test is targeted for August 2009.

Streaming KSC Weather Feed | KSC Weather Forecast | Tide Forecast | National Hurricane Center | Offshore Conditions | 45th Weather Squadron Forecasts | Space Shuttle Weather Launch Commit Criteria | Space Shuttle SLF Landing Weather Criteria