If you’re on campus Sunday and worried you’ll miss the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis crewed by York alumnus Steve MacLean, here’s the good news: you can watch it live from Cape Canaveral on large-screen TVs set up in the lobby of the Computer Science & Engineering Building.
Right: Astronaut Steve MacLean
John Briggs, classroom technology manager at York, has arranged a direct feed from NASA to two 60-inch liquid crystal display screens perched high on portable stands in the building’s spacious lobby. You can watch events daily from 8:30am to 4pm for the duration of the shuttle mission.
The shuttle is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida Aug. 27 at 4:30pm and return 11 days later. If all goes as planned, MacLean and five fellow astronauts will install a second set of solar arrays on the International Space Station.
York scientists have had access to the NASA channel for years. Rogers supplies cable television service to the University and reserves a few undedicated channels for York to use as it wishes. York uses one to bring in the NASA feed. That feed is available on channel 19 on the on-campus Rogers system, says Briggs.
As zero hour approaches, MacLean has documented his pre-launch preparations in a diary published in the Aug. 10 and Aug. 16 issues of YFile. This will be 51-year-old MacLean’s second flight into space – his first was in 1992 – and the first space walk for the physicist who earned a BSc and PhD in physics at York as well as an honorary degree.
Full details and updates on the mission and its schedule, as well as NASA TV Webcasts, can be seen at NASA’s main shuttle page.