Top NASA
officials are expected to set a firm December launch date today for the shuttle
Atlantis and a European laboratory bound for the International Space Station
(ISS).
Shuttle mission
managers are holding a day-long review at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in
Cape Canaveral, Fla., to determine whether Atlantis is ready for a planned Dec.
6 launch to the ISS. The agency will formally announce its decision during a
press conference later today.
"From
a shuttle viewpoint, I think everything is looking very good," NASA
spokesperson Kyle Herring told SPACE.com Thursday.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle flyer Stephen Frick, Atlantis' STS-122 astronaut crew is charged
with delivering the European Space Agency's (ESA) Columbus laboratory to the
ISS and swapping one member of the three-person Expedition 16 crew currently
serving aboard the station.
Frick and
his six crewmates plan to stage at least three spacewalks to install Columbus
at the station's Harmony connecting node during their
11-day spaceflight. ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts,
of France, will replace U.S. spaceflyer Dan Tani as
part of the Expedition 16 crew.
Their
mission follows a packed month of ISS construction by Expedition
16 commander Peggy Whitson, Tani and flight
engineer Yuri Malenchenko. The astronaut trio staged
three spacewalks in 15 days and performed tricky robotic arm work to outfit the
Harmony node with a shuttle docking port, move it to the front of the ISS and
wire it into the station's cooling and power grid.
Engineers on Earth continue
to study the impact of metallic grit in a massive gear that rotates the
station's starboard solar arrays like a paddlewheel to track the sun. They are also continuing work to determine if indications of a slight air leak aboard the station's Harmony module are genuine or the result of false signals from ISS instrumentation.
During
today's Flight Readiness Review (FRR), a standard meeting that precedes every
shuttle mission, NASA officials are expected to discuss plans that call for
STS-122 spacewalkers to wear protective overgloves
during their excursions to avoid cutting their spacesuit gloves on sharp edges
outside the ISS, Herring said. Mission managers will also continue talks over potential
exterior coating defects on heat-resistant panels lining space shuttle wing
edges and nose caps, he added.
A new
inspection technique to examine the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panels prior
to the Oct. 23 launch of NASA's shuttle Discovery found indications of slight
defects in the exterior coating of some panels. After a lengthy discussion,
mission managers cleared Discovery for flight, but vowed to continue studying
the coating issue to determine its cause. Discovery's STS-120 crew returned to
Earth on Nov. 7 after a successful ISS
construction flight.
Earlier
this month, mission managers also cleared Atlantis' heat shield, which consists
of the RCC panels, heat-resistant tiles and thermal blankets, of any concerns
for next week's planned launch.
NASA has an
up to nine-day window to launch Atlantis to the ISS in December before angles
between the station's power-generating solar arrays and the sun become
unfavorable for docked operations. Mission managers have said they would
reschedule the mission to early January if a December launch proves untenable.
Atlantis'
STS-122 mission will mark NASA's fourth shuttle flight of 2007 and the second
to deliver a new orbital room to the ISS.
NASA
will hold a press briefing no earlier than 4:00 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) on NASA TV
to discuss today's Flight Readiness Review meeting for Atlantis' STS-122 shuttle mission. Click here for SPACE.com's shuttle mission coverage and NASA
TV feed.
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