CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A firmly docked Russian supply ship passed critical leak checks after spacewalking repairs at the International Space Station Monday, prompting NASA officials to give shuttle Endeavour a green light for a planned launch to the outpost.
With the United States on a new high alert for terrorist attacks and security here at unprecedented levels, Endeavour is to blast off for the station at 5:45 p.m. EST (2345 GMT) Tuesday as the complex passes high above Florida.
"You'll be about 175 or 180 miles (280 or 288 kilometers) southwest of the Cape at the time of launch, and if you'd like to try to get some video of that, it would be great," NASA astronaut Barbara Morgan told the station crew from the agency's Mission Control Center in Houston.
"That would be awesome, if we can see it," outpost commander Frank Culbertson replied. "We'll look for it."
The U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies, meanwhile, maintained heightened security as NASA geared up for its first shuttle launch since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.
The Federal Aviation Administration reestablished an expansive "no fly zone" around NASA's coastal Florida spaceport, a move meant to keep aircraft from flying within 34.5 miles (55.2 kilometers) of the shuttle's beachside launch pad.
Military fighter jets and helicopter gunships will be in the air as countdown clocks tick toward liftoff. High-powered radar will be tracking air traffic and surface-to-air missile batteries reportedly are in place. What's more, the U.S. Coast Guard will clear a widespread Atlantic Ocean security zone off the coast of Cape Canaveral in a bid to protect the shuttle from any would-be terrorists.
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| For the very latest updates on Endeavour's countdown and launch to the space station, the first place to look is our Shuttle Missions page. |
The entire U.S., meanwhile, was put on high alert again Monday as President Bush's homeland security chief warned law enforcement agencies and the public of the threat of more terrorist attacks.
"Now is not the time to back off," U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said. "Obviously, the further we're removed from Sept. 11, the natural tendency is to let down out guard. We cannot do that. We are a nation at war."
Issued by the FBI, the new warning was the third since the hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania.
A U.S. Air Force official said the warning points up the need for the type of extraordinary security measures that already are in place here at KSC.
"It verifies the things we are doing as opposed to driving us to do something that we hadn't done yesterday," said Maj. Mike Rein, a spokesman for the Air Force's 45th Space Wing, which is responsible for providing shuttle launch security.
"Our goal from the very beginning was to take all reasonable measures to protect the shuttle, and the stuff we did last week, and the stuff we're going to be doing (Tuesday), is all part of that."
The only potential showstopper, consequently, appears to be the weather.
The forecast for launch is good, but there is a chance that stiff crosswinds could crop up at NASA's runway here, forcing mission managers to delay the agency's 107th shuttle flight.
"Well, we're kind of, sort of, cautiously optimistic," shuttle weather officer Ed Priselac said.
With Tropical Storm Olga still churning over the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Bermuda, winds in the Cape Canaveral area picked up Monday and gusts up to 20.7 mph (33.1 kilometers per hour) are expected Tuesday.
Strict NASA flight rules call for a shuttle launch attempt to be cancelled if crosswinds at the KSC runway exceed 17.25 mph (27.6 kilometers per hour).
The concern is that high winds could make it difficult or dangerous to safely land a shuttle if a systems failure in flight prompted an emergency return to NASA's coastal Florida spaceport.
Priselac, nevertheless, said there is an 80 percent chance that conditions will be acceptable for launch of Endeavour on a station crew rotation mission.
Endeavour had been scheduled for launch last Thursday but those plans were put on hold after a Progress cargo carrier failed to dock properly when it arrived at the outpost the night before.
U.S. and Russian engineers subsequently determined that a rubber O-ring seal jammed up a station docking port when an older Progress freighter was jettisoned from the outpost Nov. 22.
Two cosmonauts -- Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin -- successfully removed the seal during a two-hour, 46-minute excursion spacewalk at the station Monday.
The Progress then was securely docked to its station berthing port, and subsequent leak checks were carried out to make certain that there was an airtight seal between the station and the supply ship.
Now firmly fastened to the rear end of the station's Russian-built crew quarters, the Progress is filled with 2.5 tons of food, clothing, supplies and equipment for the outpost's fourth full-time crew, a trio to be launched aboard Endeavour.
NASA mission managers gave engineers the go-ahead to proceed with launch plans during a management meeting Monday evening.
The shuttle is to ferry the new station crew and some 6.5 tons of supplies and equipment to the station and then return to Earth with the outpost's current tenants.
Flying up on Endeavour: shuttle skipper Dom Gorie, pilot Mark Kelly, mission specialists Linda Godwin and Daniel Tani and three station-bound passengers: Russian station commander Yuri Onufrienko and two American flight engineers, Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz.
The so-called Expedition Four crew plans to live and work aboard the station until next May.
Coming home on the shuttle: Culbertson, Dezhurov and Turin, the three of whom have been in space since August.
A shuttle launch Tuesday would lead to a Dec. 15 landing here at KSC. For Culbertson and his crew, a touch down that day would cap a 127-day stay in space.
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