NASAmission managers will discuss repair efforts to the space shuttle Atlantis'hail-battered fuel tank today, and are expected to lay out plans for theorbiter's return to the launch pad next week.
Shuttleofficials are slated to begin meeting at about 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) toevaluate repairs to thousands of dings and divots etched into Atlantis' fueltank during a freakFeb. 26 hail storm above its Pad 39A launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The resulting damage delayedthe shuttle's planned STS-117 mission from March 15 to no earlier than June8.
"They'refeeling pretty good about that right now," NASA spokesperson Kyle Herring, ofthe agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, told SPACE.com of therepair work. "June 8, right now, continues to be the internal target launchdate."
In additionto going over Atlantis' fuel tank repair work, shuttle officials will alsodiscuss progress on propellant line inspections for the orbiter's three mainengines, NASA officials said.
Herringsaid NASA shuttle managers are targeting May 16 as the date to haul Atlantisback to its Pad 39A launch site from its berth inside the agency's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC.
Commandedby veteran shuttle astronaut Rick Sturckow, Atlantis' STS-117 mission will delivernew solar arrays to the International Space Station during a planned 11-dayspaceflight. The mission will also ferryNASA astronaut Clayton Anderson to the ISS, where he will relieve U.S. spaceflyer Sunita Williams as part of the outpost's Expedition 15 crew.
NASAshuttle officials will discuss the results of today's meeting during anafternoon teleconference with reporters, the space agency said.
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