Status Report

Space Shuttle Discovery Landing Scheduled Wednesday Morning

By SpaceRef Editor
March 20, 2001
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NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base is
preparing for a possible Space Shuttle landing at Edwards early
Wednesday morning, March 21. The shuttle Discovery may land at
Edwards to conclude mission STS-102 because of inclement weather at
the primary landing site, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA
mission controllers will make a final decision on whether to land the
Discovery at Kennedy or at Edwards about 90 minutes before the
scheduled landing.

The two landing opportunities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
are at 9:56 p.m. and 11:31 p.m. tonight Pacific time. If weather
conditions prohibit a landing in Florida, two opportunities to land
at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., are at 1:01 a.m. and 2:38 a.m.
Wednesday, both Pacific time.

In the event of a landing at Dryden, facilities will be available to
accredited news media representatives. For safety reasons in darkness
in the desert, there will not be a media convoy to the media viewing
site near the runway for the landing. News media will be allowed at
the Dryden public affairs office, which will be open to support news
media coverage by 9 p.m. NASA TV will carry the landing. NASA TV can
be accessed on the GE-2 satellite, transponder 9C, located at 85
degrees west longitude, vertical polarization, with a frequency of
3880 MHz and audio at 6.8 MHz.

Media representatives planning to cover the landing on-site should
fax a request for accreditation to (661) 276-3566 or phone the Dryden
Public Affairs Office at (661) 276-3449 no later than 3 p.m. today.

Broadcast crews desiring to make live transmission must contact NASA
Dryden public affairs not later than 3 p.m., for frequency check
scheduling. Broadcast crews must have a copy of their transmitter
license with their equipment. There will be a mandatory full-up
frequency test approximately two hours prior to any planned live
broadcast to avoid interference with frequencies used by NASA or the
Air Force. For further information, please contact the Dryden
frequency management office at (661) 276-2717.

For the latest update on the shuttle landing schedule, call (661) 276-2564.

SpaceRef staff editor.