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A hurricane alert was lifted at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, August 24, 2000.
By Todd Halvorson
Cape Canaveral Bureau Chief
posted: 11:45 am ET
24 August 2000
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hurricane_weakens_000824 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A hurricane alert was lifted at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) today, prompting NASA to keep shuttle Atlantis at its oceanside launch pad and step up work on sister ship, Discovery.
With Tropical Storm Debby weakening off the coast of Cuba and turning away from south Florida, NASA officials decided not to move Atlantis back from launch pad 39B to safe harbor inside KSCs massive Vehicle Assembly Building. Such a move likely would have forced the agency to delay the planned September 8 launch of Atlantis on a mission to outfit the International Space Station (ISS) for its first full-time crew, which is expected to arrive at the outpost in early November."We dont see any near-term threat from the storm, so Atlantis will remain at the pad and were still on for September 8 unless we get a surprise," said KSC spokesman George Diller. "The weather people will continue to watch the storm for us and theyll shoot up a flare if it intensifies and turns toward us." NASA issued a low-level hurricane alert at KSC earlier this week when Debby spun up into a hurricane. At that time, it appeared there was a chance the storm could turn north and barrel toward the east-central Florida coast, where KSC is located. 
Debby since has weakened into a tropical storm and could be further downgraded to a less-dangerous tropical depression before the end of the day. At 8:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (12:00 GMT) today, the poorly defined center of Tropical Storm Debby was located about 135 miles (215 kilometers) west-southwest of Santiago de Cuba in southeastern Cuba. Maximum sustained winds were near 40 miles (65 kilometers) per hour and the storm was expected to swirl into the Gulf of Mexico. NASA hurricane rules call for a shuttle to be moved from a launch pad back and into the 52-story assembly building if local winds are expected to exceed 69 miles (110 kilometers) per hour. Such a move, however, must occur before sustained winds top 46 miles (73.6 kilometers) per hour to avoid damage to the shuttle during the move. The reduced threat from Debby also prompted NASA to roll shuttle Discovery into the assembly building from temporary storage in a nearby KSC hangar. Technicians today will hoist Discovery on top of a mobile launcher platform and then mate it with a 15-story external tank and attached solid-fuel rocket boosters.NASA officials, however, remain concerned about the risk involved with having two fully assembled shuttles at KSCs twin launch pads during the peak of the annual hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, 2000. A decision of whether to move Discovery to KSCs launch 39A is expected early next week. Discovery and a crew of seven astronauts are scheduled to launch October 5 on a mission to outfit the international station with the first piece of what eventually will be a 356-foot (108-meter) metal backbone. That mission will be NASAs 100th space shuttle flight.
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