NASA Shuttle Team Confident in Discovery's July Launch Target

CAPE CANAVERAL - The teamat Kennedy Space Center is confident Discovery and Atlantis will be ready intime to launch the return-to-flight mission in July as planned, NASA officialstold community leaders at a breakfast Friday.

"It's been a prettytough 2 1/2 years," said Michael Wetmore, the Merritt Island man who headsshuttle processing at the space center. "We're now very confident thatlight at the end of the tunnel is not a train."

Discovery, set to fly thefirst shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster, is at the launch padwith five extra days in the schedule between now and the first available launchdate, July 13.

Discovery could fly anytime between that day and July 31.

Atlantis, which will be onstandby, ready to fly a rescue mission during Discovery's flight, is scheduledto roll to the Vehicle Assembly Building around July 19.

Wetmore said that's earlyenough to support a rushed flight to the International Space Station in theevent Discovery is crippled and the astronauts become stranded at the orbitingoutpost.

"None of us expect toever use that contingency, but we're going to be ready just in case,"Wetmore said.

The processing of the twovehicles, which has involved more than 6 million work hours, is unlikely now tocause a delay unless something unexpected comes up, Wetmore said.

Instead, the remainingconcerns deal with launch debris, particularly ice.

A final engineering reviewof the NASA's debris analysis is set for Friday at Kennedy Space Center.

Top managers, includingAdministrator Mike Griffin, will be here to review whether the last remainingdebris sources pose an unacceptable risk that would prevent launching in Julyas planned.

NASA has stressed it can'teliminate all debris.

The agency focused on themost dangerous debris sources to prevent a repeat of the Columbia disaster,where a piece of insulating foam came off the external fuel tank and blasted afatal hole in the heat shield.

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