Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:27:56 PM CDT

The Mission Management Team has concluded with the decision to target launch for Friday, Aug. 28 at 11:59 p.m. EDT instead of 12:22 a.m. Friday morning.

The additional time will allow teams to plan in case they see the same reading that happened with the liquid hydrogen fill and drain valve that caused Tuesday afternoon's launch scrub during tanking.

The MMT will meet again on Friday at noon.

A news conference will be held on NASA TV later this afternoon to discuss the decision.

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:35:49 PM CDT

Teams at Kennedy Space Center have completed a portion of the testing of a liquid hydrogen fill and drain valve in space shuttle Discovery's main propulsion system. The valve opened and closed when commanded five different times with no issues. This "cycle testing" of Discovery began at 6:28 p.m. EDT and finished at 6:59 p.m.

Teams are now performing a pressure test of the propulsion system, and recording the leak rate of small amounts of liquid hydrogen. Data from tonight's tests will be brought to tomorrow's mission management team for evaluation at the noon meeting.