After two
stalled attempts, NASA's space
shuttle Atlantis rolled out to its Florida launch pad Wednesday as workers
ready the space plane for a planned liftoff later this month.
Atlantis reached
Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida just after 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) following a seven-hour trek from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building.
The orbiter's
Mobile Launch Platform - which supports Atlantis, its external tank, and twin
solid rocket boosters - was on track to settle into final position on the pad at
about 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT), NASA officials told SPACE.com.
Despite
appearing hazy in NASA cameras at some times, while crystal clear at others,
the weather appeared a welcome turn from the storms and lightning that
prevented Atlantis' two previous rollout attempts on Monday.
"I think
everything is looking good," NASA's KSC spokesperson Tracy Young told SPACE.com
during the move, adding that current weather forecasts look favorable as
Tropical Storm Chris approaches Florida's southern coast. "The storm is going
to head pretty well south of us."
With
Atlantis now at the launch pad, all the pieces are in place for NASA's planned STS-115
space shot to jump start construction of the International Space
Station (ISS) no earlier than Aug. 27.
The shuttle's
primary load - a 17-ton set of new
trusses and solar arrays for the space station - rolled out to Pad 39B last
week, and sits inside the complex's payload changeout room to be installed in
Atlantis' 60-foot (18-meter) cargo bay.
Construction
of the ISS has been stalled since late
2002 as NASA worked to recover from the 2003 loss of the Columbia orbiter
and its seven-astronaut
crew.
NASA has
now put two shuttle flights aboard the Discovery orbiter - last months' STS-121
mission and 2005's first
post-Columbia flight STS-114 - under its belt and is pushing ahead to
launch its first dedicated orbital construction
spaceflight in more than three years.
Commanded by
shuttle flight veteran Brent
Jett, the STS-115 astronauts will stage three spacewalks outside the ISS to
install two trusses on the station's port side to support two new solar arrays.
Atlantis and its crew will also be the second shuttle flight to visit the space
station's Expedition 13 astronauts in two months.
Discovery's
STS1-121 mission launched
on July 4 and arrived
at the ISS two days later, ferrying European Space Agency (ESA) Thomas
Reiter to join Expedition
13 commander Pavel
Vinogradov and NASA science officer Jeffrey
Williams aboard the station.
Jett and
his STS-115 crewmates are expected to spend 11 days in orbit to complete their
mission. The spaceflight's launch
window currently stretches from Aug. 27 to Sept. 13, though NASA is hoping
for a liftoff no
later than Sept. 7 to allow a future Russian Soyuz spacecraft to rocket towards
the ISS on Sept. 14.
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