CAPE CANAVERAL - Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to
roll out to one of Kennedy Space Center's twin launch pads Thursday as NASA
presses ahead with preparations
for the planned March 15 launch of an International Space
Station assembly mission.
Mounted atop its mobile
launcher platform, the 4.5-million-pound shuttle will be moved to Kennedy Space
Center's Launch Complex 39A by a giant flatbed tractor originally built to haul
Saturn
5 moon rockets.
Atlantis is scheduled to
emerge from the 52-story KSC Vehicle Assembly Building around 7 a.m. EST Thursday;
the 3 1/2-mile trip to the pad is expected to take around six hours.
The rollout was delayed one
day so engineers could tackle a technical issue with the shuttle's right-hand
solid rocket booster [image].
One of three sensors that
monitor chamber pressure within the booster produced erratic readings during
routine pre-launch testing in the assembly building. The sensor was removed and
will be replaced with a spare after the shuttle reaches the pad.
The one-day rollout delay
is not expected to push back the planned March 15 launch of Atlantis and a
six-man station construction crew.
"At this point, there
are no technical issues that would prohibit us from targeting a March
15 launch," KSC spokeswoman Jessica Rye said.
Led by mission commander Rick
Sturckow, the Atlantis
astronauts aim to deliver a new 17.5-ton station truss segment [image]
equipped with a new set of massive American solar wings. Now folded up in
blanket boxes, the arrays will stretch 240 feet from tip-to-tip once unfurled
in orbit.
The solar wing set is the
third of four that will generate the electricity needed to run U.S. station
systems. Its arrays will be deployed from the end of the 45-foot-long truss
segment, which will be latched to the starboard side of the truss. The segment
is identical to a portside girder delivered to the station during a shuttle
mission last September.
Nestled in a 65-foot tall
transportation canister, the prime payload for the upcoming mission was
delivered to the launch pad earlier this week [image]
and will be installed in the cargo bay of shuttle Atlantis next Monday.
The Atlantis astronauts
will fly to KSC next week to take part in emergency training at the launch pad
and a two-day practice countdown. Pilot
Lee Archambault and mission specialists James Reilly, Steven Swanson,
Patrick Forrester and John Olivas round out the crew.
An official launch date
will be selected late this month at the conclusion of a traditional two-day
flight readiness review. As it stands, Atlantis and its crew are set to blast
off at 6:43 a.m. March 15. It will be the 118th mission for the shuttle program
and the 28th for Atlantis.
Landing is scheduled at 1:54
a.m. EST March 26.
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