Hate to be the informer but its NET July 15 now. I have a feeling...

KSC is saying that all options are on the table and that the blackout from the 10th to 15th is not definite. They will asses the availability of the range aircraft vs ship, see how many days they can try, etc and make a decision today or tomorrow.

I'm told they are going to hold a meeting later today and reassess the plan for July and what dates they would have. Fueling of the second stage has not happened yet.

Just to note here, it appears they DID find a workaround plan because they say they will give Dawn shots up until the 19th of July without a Phoenix delay (the 19th is the last day of the planetary window for Dawn as well, until September).

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/

24 hours. The thing with the dates appears to be true, but still no explanation as to why they can suddenly work the 15-19 without a Mars delay that I've seen.

They have given the go to fuel the second stage.

According to NASA PAO, they have the 7-9th, stand down, and then the 15-19th which is a new surprise (if correct). I haven't heard any more on that. They said they discussed the Phoenix conflict today in addition to the range issue and weather.

60% wx violation on Saturday and 70% Sunday right now.

Cool. Amazing that they are able to trace that. But it's happened with other parts before too.

I think they are pressing on pending that one range issue which they will know tomorrow.

Hope they get off in the five day window now...afternoon t-storms have been especially heavy here the last week with this stalled-out low pressure system.

Not to stray off-topic, but I'd like to see that photo if you know where it is.

Some photos from today's viewing:

http://www.launchphotography.com/Phoenix_cleanroom.html

From the article:

"If the launch vehicle and assembly crane aren't repaired, however, the U.S. space agency faces a "traffic jam" into space that could cost around $25 million."

The crane was fixed and the minor weather delay was long ago. There is no threat of delay from those anymore; but rather had caused the delay to July 7 previously.

Yea, the seals. Am I correct that it takes longer to refurb the stage than it would to get a new one. I think that's the idea.

The planetary window closes July 19 and reopens Sept 7 or so.

The launch period closes July 11 as dictated because of a couple of reasons; one is that they need time to clean up the pad before bringing Phoenix out. The other reason is that you cannot conduct a launch with a spacecraft on the other launch pad. If it launches July 12 they say they won't have enough time to get ready for Phoenix to meet August 3. In addition if it can't launch they need time to remove Dawn from its rocket.

If they decide to launch Dawn July 7, it has 45 days to launch from there onward; the second stage has a short lifespan once it is fueled. They cannot get a new second stage until October or so; so if they decide to launch and Dawn isn't off the ground by July 11 they may be in trouble.

They also stated that if they decided to delay at this time and not press ahead next week, it would cost $25 million or so.

I believe I covered it close to accurately here.

It was a little different than usual:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts117/070622tracks/

They probably heard it easily in San Diego.

Here is a selection of photos I took today:

http://www.launchphotography.com/Dawn_cleanroom.html

Here is Phoenix's category for future reference:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=174

...not sure why they put those in Dawn's category. Of course if you read the captions on the Complex 36 demolition photos, I'm not surprised.

"Marc Rayman who is helping oversee the Dawn launch campaign team at KSC has told SpaceDaily.com. "The report of a worker falling [on the Dawn spacecraft] is wrong; I don't know how such a rumor even got started. A tool made inadvertent contact with the back of the solar array (i.e., the side without solar cells). There is no reason to expect this to have an effect on our plans to launch on July..."

http://www.SpaceDaily.com

It appears it is nothing major and no delay:

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12...for-launch.html

The delay is official and Dawn will not lift off before the first week of July now.

I'm not sure why, but they seem to be posting an updated launch time by the day. 4:50:13 for 20 mins now (assuming it sticks to June 30).

Revised launch window: 4:47:46pm - 5:07:46pm EDT per NASA/KSC.

There are more images here and this page is updated regularly with new Dawn images (and will be through launch):

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=173

I think it is a good idea to cite/source the images, even if they are NASA images.

Here you go, since you'll never see them side by side in real life :-) The person under the shuttle is to the same scale too.

Atlas 5 is 196 feet tall for 500 version and 192 feet for 400 version. The shuttle is 184 feet tall. Side by side you can't really tell the difference. But the shuttle is by far the most powerful and most massive vehicle.

These and more can be found here too:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

They should be starting a Phoenix category soon.