CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA might break a long dry spell by flying a shuttle up to its infant International Space Station this spring. Or then again, the agency might not.
With the long-delayed launch of a key Russian command and control module for the station still up in the air, senior managers decided Thursday to press ahead with plans to dispatch a maintenance crew to the outpost in mid-April.
"What we have decided so far is we will preserve the option to fly in April," NASA shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said.
The reason: A Russian space tug now keeping the seven-story station in orbit is only certified to fly through the end of March, and NASA wants to do the maintenance work necessary to extend its service life through the end of the year.
NASA had originally planned to launch a shuttle mission this spring to do the maintenance work and outfit the Russian command and control module, which will double as living quarters for station crews.
The new plan effectively would split that mission in half.
Shuttle Atlantis would be launched around April 13 on a maintenance mission. A second flight then would be carried out later this year about a month after the Russian command and control module is launched.
Dubbed Zvezda, or Star, the Russian module is tentatively scheduled for launch aboard a Proton rocket in late July or early August. Its flight was put on hold after a pair of Proton rocket failures last July and October, respectively.
A firm launch date for the Zvezda mission is expected to be selected in mid-February when NASA officials and their counterparts at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency meet in Moscow.
NASA officials, meanwhile, still are hanging on to hopes that the Zvezda module can be launched in May or June.
In that case, the maintenance mission now being planned for launch in April would be postponed until after the Zvezda launch. The two shuttle missions now envisioned would be combined into one flight that would be launched about a month after Zvezda was delivered to orbit.
Still embryonic in nature, the international station now consists of two initial building blocks launched in late 1998: The Russian space tug "Zarya" and a six-port U.S. docking module that eventually will serve as a gateway to other parts of the outpost.
NASA hasnt flown a shuttle to the outpost since an assembly and supply flight that was carried out between May 27 and June 6, 1999. Another 43 shuttle missions and eight more Russian rocket flights still have to be launched to complete construction of the station.
Considered by many to be one of the most complex engineering endeavors of all time, the outpost eventually will weigh about 480 tons and span an area in space nearly as large as two football fields.
A joint project being carried out by space agencies in the U.S., Russia, Canada, Europe, Japan and Brazil, the $60 billion station is expected to provide scientists from 16 nations with world-class laboratories in space for a decade or more.
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