Shuttle cleared for Thursday launch

[Guest Glenn]

Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20 ... 02,00.html

 

NASA managers have cleared the space shuttle Atlantis for a launch attempt early on Thursday morning, Australian time.This follows a week's delay because of a lightning strike and storm.

 

Atlantis' lift-off is targeted for 12.29pm Wednesday (0229 AEST Thursday) at the Kennedy Space Centre in central Florida. Managers are also prepared to make launch attempts on the following two days if the weather or technical problems prevent lift-off.

 

"We feel like we are in very good shape," said Kennedy Space Centre launch manager LeRoy Cain, who told a briefing that NASA's mission management team had cleared the space shuttle for the launch attempt.

 

It will be NASA's first mission to restart construction of the half-built, $US100 billion ($A130.64 billion) International Space Station since before the 2003 Columbia disaster.

 

"The wait's nearly over," said Jeff Spaulding, a NASA launch director at the Kennedy Space Centre.

 

NASA had planned to launch Atlantis and its crew of six last week, but a lightning strike at the launch pad and then high winds from Tropical Storm Ernesto kept the winged spacecraft grounded.

 

Meteorologists have predicted an 80 per cent chance the weather would be acceptable for launch.

 

Atlantis' primary payload, one of the heaviest ever for a shuttle, is a $US372 million ($485.99 million) space station truss segment that contains a pair of power-producing solar arrays.

 

"We are into the heart of the (station) assembly and we certainly have our fingers crossed that things are going to go very well," said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.

 

The equipment was to have been installed in 2003, but NASA stopped flying the space shuttles after losing shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts on February 1, 2003. The spaceship broke apart as it headed toward landing because its heat shield had been damaged by falling foam insulation during launch.

 

The agency has since flown two test flights to check equipment redesigns that cleared the way for Atlantis to resume space station assembly.

 

NASA has just four years to finish work on the research outpost because the shuttles ? the only vehicles designed to carry the station's major components to orbit ? are due to be retired in 2010.