CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - The weather odds are in NASA's favor for its planned Wednesday
launch of the space shuttle
Atlantis.
Atlantis
and its six-astronaut
crew have an 80 percent chance of clear skies at 12:29 p.m. EDT (1629 GMT)
Wednesday, when they expect to rocket spaceward towards the International Space
Station (ISS), shuttle weather officials said here at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center (KSC). Subsequent launch opportunities on Thursday and Friday offer a 70
percent chance of favorable conditions, they added.
"Overall,
the weather looks good for launch day and we're looking forward to it," shuttle
weather officer Kathy Winters said Monday in a status briefing.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle flyer Brent
Jett, Atlantis' STS-115 crew will deliver a $371.8 million set of new
solar arrays and massive trusses to the ISS in what will mark NASA's first space station
construction mission since late
2002.
The shuttle
mission is NASA's third since the 2003 Columbia tragedy and has
been delayed several times from its Aug. 27 target by poor weather, first due
to a launch
pad lightning strike and related
spacecraft checks and then by Tropical
Storm Ernesto. Atlantis now has several final opportunities to fly during a
three-day
window from Sept. 6-8 to avoid conflicts with an upcoming Russian Soyuz
launch on Sept. 18.
"Atlantis and
her crew have been waiting for years to complete this mission, and thanks to
Ernesto they've had to wait a week longer or so," said Jeff Spaulding, NASA
test director, during the briefing, adding that aside from some cosmetic damage
to Atlantis' foam-covered external tank the spacecraft weather Ernesto well. "That
wait's nearly over."
Spaulding
said analysis is still underway to determine whether shuttle officials will
actually target three consecutive launch attempts should it become necessary.
Meanwhile,
pad crews have completed loading the cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen used to power Atlantis' fuel cells aboard the orbiter. Engine checks
are scheduled for later this evening.
Atlantis'
17.5-ton payload - the Port 3/Port4 (P3/P4) truss segment and its solar arrays -
remain in fine condition tucked in the shuttle's cargo bay. The payload's
batteries will not have to be recharged since their Aug. 24 boost, shuttle
officials said, though experiment
packages containing yeast and microbes will be loaded into Atlantis'
middeck lockers Tuesday afternoon.
"We're
tracking no issues at this time and we're right on track with our timelines,"
Spaulding said.
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