CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The date to start NASA's first space shuttle mission in four months was officially set for Oct. 2, the agency announced Tuesday.
Following a day-long meeting of top program managers at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA officials approved launching Atlantis' 11-day assembly mission to the International Space Station between 2 and 6 p.m. EDT (1800 and 2200 GMT).
"It was a good review and everybody was happy with it," KSC spokesman Bruce Buckingham said of the Flight Readiness Review.
The exact launch time won't be announced until 24 hours before liftoff, part of security precautions adopted by NASA in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America.
There are no technical problems threatening to hold up the shot and that includes any lingering concerns about Atlantis' main propulsion system plumbing, Buckingham said.
During the summer a sharp-eyed inspector discovered that internal parts of the plumbing had tiny cracks, prompting NASA to delay all shuttle flights until the trouble was solved by welding the flaw.
Once airborne the five astronauts and one cosmonaut will dock with the frontier outpost and spend the next week installing a new truss extension onto the station. Also on tap for the mission: a trio of spacewalks to help hook up the truss to the rest of the station's systems and the transfer of several hundred pounds of fresh supplies for the Expedition Five crew.
The STS-112 crew are at KSC this week to participate in a countdown dress rehearsal, as well as to receive training on emergency escape procedures at the launch pad. Routine pre-launch processing also continues and Buckingham said there still are two to three days of padding left in the schedule to deal with any last-minute problems.One potential source of trouble has to do with the threat of a tropical depression, which as of 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) was in the Caribbean Sea south of Jamaica. The depression was expected to become a tropical storm during the next 24 hours and has the potential to become a hurricane.
Current predicted storm tracks keep it clear of Florida's Space Coast, but it's still too early to know for sure what is going to happen with the storm.
"We're aware that it is out there," Buckingham said. "At this point it's not going to keep us from doing the work we need to do to be ready to fly Oct. 2."
If tropical storm-force winds are expected at KSC and there is time to do so, NASA managers would order shuttle Atlantis moved off its launch pad and put inside the Vehicle Assembly Building until the blustery weather passes.
While shuttle Atlantis remains safe at the launch pad for now, another NASA-sponsored mission involving astronauts, scientists and a flight director was put on hold as a direct result of the tropical depression.
A crew of four from the Johnson Space Center in Houston were scheduled Monday to begin a week-long stay in the underwater Aquarius laboratory, which is located 63 feet (19 meters) underwater about three miles (4.8 kilometers) off the Florida coast at Key Largo.
With the storm threatening the Florida Keys later this week, there is no possibility the underwater mission will begin until Saturday at the earliest, said Marc Reagan, a NASA mission manager. The week-long exercise likely will be shortened as well.
The purpose of the mission is to simulate a stay aboard the space station by adding the complexity of being in actual "extreme" environment underwater. Flight director Paul Hill will join the mission commanded by astronaut Scott Kelly to gain first-hand experience of what it's like to serve on a crew.
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