CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's shuttle Atlantis and a massive European laboratory are
on track for their planned Thursday launch toward the International Space
Station (ISS).
Atlantis'
seven-astronaut crew is slated
to liftoff from a seaside launch pad here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
(KSC) spaceport at 4:31 p.m. EST (2131 GMT), with a 90 percent chance of pristine
weather conditions.
"The
vehicle is looking good and the weather is looking good, too," said shuttle
weather officer Kathy Winters, of the U.S. Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron,
in a morning briefing.
Commanded
by veteran
shuttle astronaut Stephen Frick, Atlantis' STS-122 crew will haul the
European Space Agency's (ESA) 13-ton Columbus lab to the ISS during a planned 11-day
mission. Three spacewalks are on tap for the spaceflight, but NASA may
extend the mission by two days to add fourth excursion to inspect a balky ISS
solar array joint.
NASA test
director Jeff Spaulding said shuttle workers detected a small leak in ground
equipment late Wednesday after loading super-chilled liquid hydrogen into Atlantis'
tanks, but the glitch is not expected to hinder plans for tomorrow's launch.
"It's on
the ground side only," Spaulding told reporters. "It is not a vehicle issue at
all."
NASA space
shuttles use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactants to power their three
fuel cells during orbital flight.
Spaulding
said engineers will spend the bulk of today testing Atlantis' communication systems
and loading the final pieces of cargo into the shuttle's middeck. A pair of
experiments and some last-minute food items are on that list, he said.
Frick and his
STS-122 crew, meanwhile, plan to visit Atlantis at the pad today as part of
the prelaunch preparations, NASA officials said.
At 8:00
p.m. EST (0100 Dec. 6 GMT) tonight, pad workers are expected to retract the
shroud-like Rotating Service Structure that protects Atlantis from weather at
its Pad 39A launch site.
NASA has a
slim window that closes on Dec. 13 in order to launch Atlantis to the ISS while
the angles between the station's solar arrays and the sun are favorable for docked
operations. If weather foils Thursday's launch attempt, NASA could try again as
early as Friday at 4:09 p.m. EST (2109 GMT).
Winters
said the weather outlook offers an 80 percent change of favorable launch
conditions on Friday, but will dip to about 60 percent on Saturday.
Atlantis'
STS-122 mission will mark NASA's fourth shuttle flight of the year and the
second to deliver a new pressurized module to the ISS.
NASA
will broadcast Atlantis' STS-122 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's shuttle mission coverage and NASA
TV feed.
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