NASA has invited up to 100 of its followers on Twitter to watch the launch in person as part of the agency's tweetup campaign. Registration for the event opens on Friday via NASA's tweetup Web site.
Launch
date limbo
There are
two unmanned rocket launches scheduled in November that NASA must work around
in order to try to launch Atlantis next month. The agency is also watching the
Leonids meteor shower, which is expected to peak Nov. 17, to be sure Atlantis
doesn't launch at the shower's height.
NASA is
hopeful that it can get at least three launch attempts for Atlantis in
November, before standing down around Nov. 19 or 20 due to unfavorable sun
angles at
the space station, which can cause heating and power concerns, agency
officials said.
"We still
have some negotiating to do," NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com
from the spaceport. "Whatever day it ends up being, we're getting ourselves in
a position to be ready to launch."
Wednesday's
launch pad rollout is part of that plan.
NASA began
hauling Atlantis toward Launch Pad 39A at 6:38 a.m. EDT (1038 GMT) using its
massive crawler carrier vehicle originally built for the Apollo flights in the
late 1960s and 1970s. The 12 million-pound (5.4 million-kg) combo of the
Atlantis and its carrier can move at a top speed of about 1 mph (1.6 kph).
The trip
began a bit late due to last minute glitches and took nearly seven hours to
traverse the 3.4-mile (5.4-km) river rock-lined crawlerway to Pad 39A.
Preparing
for launch
On Monday,
Atlantis' six astronauts — commanded by veteran spaceflyer Charlie Hobaugh — will
arrive at the Kennedy Space Center to begin several days of final training that
will end with a launch dress rehearsal and emergency escape drill, Beutel said.
They spent today training in a shuttle simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center
in Houston.
Hobaugh and
his crew are slated to launch toward the space station at 4:04 p.m. EST (2104
GMT) on Nov. 12 on an 11-day mission. Three spacewalks are
planned to deliver a set of large spare parts for the outpost. The shuttle will
also return NASA astronaut Nicole Stott — who arrived at the station Aug. 30 to
join its six-person crew — back to Earth.
Atlantis'
launch pad trek was initially scheduled for Tuesday. But delays caused by a
crane, wiring and solid rocket booster cable glitches kept the shuttle from
rolling out until today.
NASA is
also preparing for the planned Oct. 27 launch of its first Ares I rocket
demonstrator, the suborbital Ares I-X booster, at the Kennedy Space Center.
That rocket is slated to roll out to the nearby Launch Pad 39B on Oct. 19.
Still,
engineers have about three days of padding in their work schedule for a potential
Nov. 12 launch, Beutel said. If Atlantis does not launch in November, the next
opportunity could arise in December, he added.
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