Turkey vultures like this one gained their own independence a day early at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Ken Thornsley.

While NASA’s “bird” – the space shuttle Discovery – is hoping to free itself from the bonds of gravity today, a group of 50 vultures celebrated their freedom one early day at NASA’s KSC spaceport.

Special traps designed to lure turkey vultures – which are common sight at KSC’s location in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge – away from Discovery’s launch pad to prevent them from hitting the shuttle or its tank during launch were opened Monday for the first time since Friday. NASA has also set up a roadkill patrol to retrieve animal carcasses along its spaceport roads to remove a potential vulture food source and built a new radar to scan for birds inside Discovery’s launch flight path and can even hold today’s launch countdown if too many of the pesky avians are in the area.

During Discovery’s last launch, STS-114 in July 2005, a bird hit the tank’s non-orbiter side as the shuttle launched spaceward. Two others were crisped when they flew into the spacecraft’s rocket plume.

About 30 vultures were snared in cages lined with bait and water with 20 others milling around in the general area of the traps, NASA officials said.

The birds were freed well away from Discovery’s launch pad, they added.   

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 at 6:24 am and is filed under Animal Domain, Space & Astronomy, Strange News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.