This story was updated at 11:59 p.m. EST.
HOUSTON —
NASA will call up a backup landing strip for the space shuttle Atlantis next
week to give the U.S. military more leeway to shoot down an ailing spy satellite,
mission managers said Friday.
The space
agency will activate a backup runway at California's Edwards Air Force Base on
Feb. 20 in addition to the shuttle's primary landing site at the Kennedy Space
Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to give the U.S. Navy the largest window
possible in which to launch a missile
at the dead satellite, said Sally Davis, lead space station flight director for
the shuttle flight.
"We're
going to open up Dryden at the Edwards Air Force Base to ensure that we land at
the earliest opportunity, Davis told reporters as she read a NASA statement
here at the Johnson Space Center. "The reason is to give the military the biggest
possible window and maximum flexibility to ensure the success of the satellite intercept."
Atlantis is
currently scheduled to land at the KSC runway at 9:06 a.m. EST (1406 GMT) on
Wednesday, with a second opportunity available at 10:40 a.m. EST (1540 GMT). By
activating the backup runway at Edwards, a third landing possibility is now
available at 12:12 p.m. EST (1712 GMT).
Pentagon
officials announced Thursday that it plans to fire a Standard
Missile 3 from a U.S. Navy Aegis ship in the days following Atlantis' landing
to destroy a U.S. reconnaissance satellite before it crashes to Earth.
"So
we're going to bring the shuttle down before we even consider this option," U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James
Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during the
Thursday announcement.
The classified
National Reconnaissance Office satellite weighs 5,015 pounds (2,275 kilograms)
and is about the size of a bus. It launched in December 2006, but suffered a
major malfunction and is rapidly falling toward Earth. Eager skywatchers can observe
the satellite in orbit as it flies overhead.
If left on
its own, at least 50 percent of the satellite's mass would survive reentry —
including a tank full of toxic hydrazine fuel — prompting concerns that debris
could endanger the public should it fall on a populated area, Cartwright said.
The window
in which to destroy the satellite just before it reenters the Earth's atmosphere — and
still limit the risk of secondary debris endangering unmanned spacecraft, the
International Space Station (ISS) and the public on the ground — closes just
days after Atlantis' planned Feb. 20 landing.
NASA traditionally
only targets the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at its KSC for the first landing
day of a shuttle mission because it cuts at least a week and $1.7 million from
the spacecraft's turnaround costs for subsequent flights.
Backup landing strips are available at Edwards and, less desireably, White Sands Space
Harbor in White Sands, N.M. The New Mexico landing strip is less equipped to
receive a landing shuttle and ferry it back to NASA's KSC launch site than the
agency's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards.
NASA chief
Michael Griffin said Thursday that the effort to shoot down the defunct spy satellite
will not endanger Atlantis or the international, three-astronaut crew serving
aboard the space station. Top space station officials reiterated that point
today.
"We've
analyzed it and it has negligible impact or additional risk to the space
station," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy space station program manager.
Shireman
said that there are no current plans to have the space station crew, which is
commanded by American
astronaut Peggy Whitson, attempt to observe or photograph the satellite's
destruction from orbit.
"We're not
concerned at all about any risk to the space station an dat this time have no
plans for any operations in conjunction," Shireman said.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle astronaut Stephen Frick, Atlantis' seven-astronaut crew is
in the midst of a 13-day mission to deliver the European Space Agency's
Columbus lab and a new crewmember to the ISS.
The shuttle
astronauts launched aboard Atlantis on Feb. 7.
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