![]() ![]() The new system incorporated a suite of high-speed cameras designed to capture visual evidence of any lightning striking the pad directly or nearby. “We also wanted to be able to accurately locate it, but that was a secondary requirement.” That is exactly why NASA had already begun working on a new lightning monitoring system focused directly on the launch pads, Mata says, “to make sure that if lightning struck within a certain radius, we will detect it. ![]() Several days to a week,” explains Kevin Decker, an engineer at Kennedy. “And the retest could take a long time depending on which systems are involved. In previous cases, a storm like this, with strikes so close, would have certainly demanded a delay while engineers retested potentially affected systems. “Problems on the ground are fixable, but if you launch something that has been compromised, you can get into a lot of trouble,” emphasizes Carlos Mata, who was the lightning subject matter expert at Kennedy for more than a decade before moving into the private sector. Nevertheless, a launch, especially one with crew on board, cannot go forward when there is any question the spacecraft may have been damaged. Neither system had a great track record at Kennedy-NASA investigations had determined they reported only 70 to 80 percent of lightning strikes and were prone to reporting strikes in locations where they did not actually occur. There were two systems monitoring lightning activity around Kennedy Space Center in 2011: the local Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Surveillance System (CGLSS) operated by the Air Force, which has a base nearby, and the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), a nationwide detection system owned and operated by a private company.Īccording to CGLSS, both lightning events struck pad A at Launch Complex 39, where Atlantis was waiting for launch. The crucial questions for engineers and officials hoping to keep the launch on schedule were: where exactly did those strikes hit, and were they close enough to do any damage to the Shuttle’s electrical systems? On July 7, 2011, as Space Shuttle Atlantis sat on the launch pad just one day before it was due to make the final voyage of NASA’s 30-year Shuttle program, lightning struck.
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