Twin shuttles

An historic moment Saturday morning. For only the second time in the shuttle program, two shuttles sit on pads A&B simultaneously. Atlantis is on pad A in the foreground and Endeavour is on pad B in the background. Atlantis will be launching 12 October for the final Hubble servicing mission. Hubble is in a different orbital plane than the International Space Station. Hubble is about 27 degrees inclination and ISS is abut 57 degrees. Changing orbital plane is not as simple as changing altitude. It costs a great deal of energy, read fuel, to make such a change. So in the unlikely event that Atlantis might have to seek safe harbor before a landing, going to ISS is out of the picture. Therefore Endeavour has been set up as a rescue vehicle. If needed, it could launch and pick up Atlantis' crew and Atlantis could be brought down by remote control. All that would be very cool, but not what we want to see happen. This is the reason for the double shuttle lineup. A wonderfully cool photo it makes, and something we are a lot less likely to see again this late in the shuttle's career. That is part of what makes it so historic. As neat as it would be to have two shuttles in orbit at the same time, I find it highly unlikely, and not what I really want to see. Go Atlantis go. Endeavour, you'll have your chance later on down the mission list.

Sidebar, 21 Sept was my 27th anniversary with NASA.