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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Workers carry away the faulty Enhanced Main Events Controller (E-MEC) from Shuttle Endeavour at Launch Pad 39A. The E-MEC became suspect during the Jan. 31 launch countdown and mission STS-99 was delayed when NASA managers decided to replace it. Each Shuttle carries two enhanced master events controllers (E-MECs), which provide relays for onboard flight computers to send signals to arm and fire pyrotechnics that separate the solid rockets and external tank during assent. Both E-MECs are needed for the Shuttle to be cleared for flight. Currently Endeavour and Columbia are the only two orbiters with the E-MECs. Built by Rockwell's Satellite Space Electronics Division, Anaheim, Calif., each unit weighs 65 pounds and is approximately 20 inches long, 13 inches wide and 8 inches tall. Previously, three Shuttle flights have been scrubbed or delayed due to faulty MECs: STS-73, STS-49 and STS-41-D. The next scheduled date for launch of STS-99 is Feb. 11 at 12:30 p.m. EST KSC00pp0164
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Workers carry away the faulty Enhanced Main Events Controller (E-MEC) from Shuttle Endeavour at Launch Pad 39A. The E-MEC became suspect during the Jan. 31 launch countdown and mission STS-99 was delayed when NASA managers decided to replace it. Each Shuttle carries two enhanced master events controllers (E-MECs), which provide relays for onboard flight computers to send signals to arm and fire pyrotechnics that separate the solid rockets and external tank during assent. Both E-MECs are needed for the Shuttle to be cleared for flight. Currently Endeavour and Columbia are the only two orbiters with the E-MECs. Built by Rockwell's Satellite Space Electronics Division, Anaheim, Calif., each unit weighs 65 pounds and is approximately 20 inches long, 13 inches wide and 8 inches tall. Previously, three Shuttle flights have been scrubbed or delayed due to faulty MECs: STS-73, STS-49 and STS-41-D. The next scheduled date for launch of STS-99 is Feb. 11 at 12:30 p.m. EST
The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.
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