NASA is
holding off on moving the space shuttle Atlantis to its Florida launch pad this
week to ensure it is not threatened by Tropical Storm Hanna, the agency said
Tuesday.
While the
shuttle could make the 3-mile (4.8-km) trek to the seaside launch pad as early
as Thursday, it's more likely to move on Saturday after Hanna has passed, said
NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel of the Kennedy Space
Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
"We're
watching and protecting our options," Beutel told SPACE.com.
"I think we're all pretty much figuring it will be Saturday."
Shuttle
workers at KSC had initially planned to move Atlantis to Launch Pad 39A early
Monday but held off a day to monitor Hanna, which as of Tuesday had weakened back
to a tropical storm after reaching hurricane status over the weekend. NASA
hoped to attempt the shuttle move early Wednesday, but later shifted to no
earlier than Thursday at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) with Saturday a more likely
target.
Until Hanna
passes, Atlantis and its attached external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters
will stay in the shelter of NASA's 52-Vehicle Assembly Building at the
spaceport.
As of 2:00
p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) Tuesday, Hanna was headed for the southeastern Bahamas with
maximum sustained winds of about 70 mph (110 kph) and
higher gusts, according to a National Hurricane Center status report. The storm
is expected to strengthen over Wednesday and Thursday, with current forecasts
predicting it to move northwest off the eastern coast
of Florida.
"We're
expecting tropical force winds," Beutel said.
NASA is
targeting an Oct. 8 launch for Atlantis and a crew of seven astronauts to pay
one last service call on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Last week,
mission managers were
weighing options to push the mission to Oct. 10 or 11 due to processing
delays caused by the last month's Tropical Storm Fay, which prompted NASA to close
its KSC spaceport for three days. A further launch delay appears likely the
longer Atlantis remains inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building.
Beutel
said today that the spaceport was operating at Hurricane Condition Four, the
center's lowest alert level, to secure loose debris in anticipation of wind
speeds reaching 50 knots (58 mph) in the next 72 hours.
According
to NASA's hurricane plan, space shuttles cannot remain at a launch pad if winds
are forecast to reach top speeds of 70 knots (79 mph). The plan also forbids
space shuttles to move between launch pads and NASA's cavernous Vehicle Assembly
Building after winds reach sustained speeds of 40 knots (46 mph) with gusts up
to 60 knots (69 mph) and lightning within a 23-mile (37-km) radius.
Atlantis'
October spaceflight is the fourth of five NASA shuttle flights planned for
2008. The year's final scheduled mission, a planned Nov. 10 launch aboard
Endeavour to deliver supplies and equipment to the International Space Station,
must fly before Nov. 25, when NASA would stand down due to unfavorable lighting and
heating concerns at the orbiting outpost, agency officials have said.
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