The Shuttle's ET

Time to take off the engineer hats and put on the manager hats?
Does any of this sound familiar?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001473.html

"During the first tanking test on April 14, two of four hydrogen depletion sensors in the tank failed to operate properly and a hydrogen pressure relief valve was triggered 13 times -- more often than the eight or nine times that is standard for such a test.

Unsure why these two glitches occurred, engineers inspected the tank hardware, reviewed their procedures and conducted a second trial yesterday morning. Parsons said "we had a perfect test" and used newly installed equipment to gather "great data," which will be evaluated during the next week.

Parsons cautioned reporters that the information "is so preliminary that anything you write should have a lot of wiggle in it," but the depletion sensor problem appeared to have righted itself. "We [still] don't completely understand" it, he said. "We've gone in and changed a lot of wiring, and we may have fixed it."

The pressure relief valve, however, cycled 13 times again, and Parsons suggested the problem may lie with a "diffuser" -- a screen inside the tank that smooths the hydrogen flow toward the engine.

Parsons said Discovery's new tank will have an older, flight-tested diffuser, and the team has no plans to conduct a third tanking test. He said he was aware of dissenters among the engineers but urged them to "look at the data from the second test, understand it, and then make the case." "

<>Yup, other than that pressure relief valve anomaly we had, and what exactly was going on with the hydrogen sensors, it was a perfect test.
You sure wouldn't want to delay that launch for a week, would you?
I mean it's been delayed a few times already, and this is starting to look embarrassing.

Pat
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