Baltimorean Robert Curbeam Jr. is waiting at the Kennedy Space Center this morning to see if the weather will let him return to space.
Curbeam, a veteran of two spaceflights, is part of shuttle mission 116. The mission?s objectives include delivering a replacement astronaut, rewiring the space station and installing a new structural truss to hold two new solar panels.
Curbeam will participate in a spacewalk to install a small spacer that goes between the two, large solar array trusses on the port side of the space station, according to the NASA Web site. In an interview posted on the site, Curbeam raved about his Baltimore roots.
“Oh, I?m from Baltimore. I?m a Baltimorean through and through, born and raised,” he said. “Granted, I have a lot of pride in Baltimore. I love my Orioles. Still love the Colts, even though they left us. But you know the Ravens are there now. So I love them.”
Curbeam, a 1980 graduate of Woodlawn High School, initially wanted to design and build better air and space craft, until he met astronaut Kathy Thornton at Johnson Space Center.
“It just so happened that when I did meet an astronaut and speak with her at length, it sounded interesting to me. It sounded like something that I wanted to do,” Curbeam said. “And I was fortunate enough to have pursued education through enough of my life that I had the qualifications necessary to be competitive.”
Woodlawn teacher Tom Lawler is one of two remaining teachers who taught Curbeam. He also coached the future astronaut in cross country.
“He?s a super role model, even though he graduated quite a number of years ago.”
He described Curbeam as a motivated student, attending science clubs and meetings on weekends at the Maryland Science Center. The whole school is pulling for him, hoping that low clouds don?t scrub the flight. Wednesday, NASA meteorologists said there was a 60 percent chance that bad weather would down the flight, up from 40 percent Tuesday.
“The forecast has trended toward the worse,” NASA shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said Wednesday.
NASA has four launch opportunities over five days to start the 12-day mission.
Along with concern about the weather, engineers spent much of Wednesday reviewing two technical problems ? a brief power surge and concerns about adhesive protecting seals in the rocket boosters. By Wednesday, NASA officials said these issues would not delay a launch.
