The only potential showstopper: A chance that isolated rain showers could pop up off the coast of Cape Canaveral and then inch their way toward KSCs 3-mile- (4.8-kilometer-) long landing strip."Thats the only thing were really going to worry about," said NASA flight director Wayne Hale. "Those should be over the Atlantic Ocean, and if they act as they typically do -- and peter out as they come toward the shoreline -- we should be in good shape for an on-time landing."
Strict NASA flight rules call for a landing attempt to be called off if rain creeps within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of the KSC runway.
The Atlantis astronauts in any case will be poised to fire the shuttles twin maneuvering engines around 2:50 a.m. EDT (06:50 GMT), a move designed to slow the ship enough to send it on an hour-long freefall back to Earth.
Bringing it home
An on-time landing would cap a 4.9 million-mile (7.8 million-kilometer) mission to the International Space Station, where the astronauts spent eight days preparing the outpost for the arrival of its first resident crew in early November.
Atlantis and its crew will have two chances Wednesday to skirt any coastal rainstorms. A second and final landing opportunity of the day will come at 5:33 a.m. EDT (09:33 GMT) at KSC.
Should the weather take a turn for the worse and keep the crew aloft an extra day, NASA likely will call up a back-up landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California in a bid to get the crew back on the ground Thursday.
The shuttle has enough fuel and supplies onboard to remain in space until Friday.
The crews return to Earth will mark the 15th night landing in shuttle program history. A return to Florida would be the 23rd consecutive shuttle landing at KSC.
NASA prefers to land shuttles at KSC because it costs about $1 million - and takes at least a week - to ferry shuttle orbiters from California back to Florida atop a modified 747 jumbo jet.
A California landing, consequently, would slow preparations for Atlantis next launch -- a January mission to haul a bus-sized U.S. laboratory module up to the international station.
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