NASA sets space shuttle launch

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA decided on
Thursday to try to launch space shuttle Atlantis next Wednesday
to resume construction of the International Space Station,
after a delay caused by a lighting strike and threat of bad
weather.

Hopes of a liftoff before the Atlantis’ launch window
closes late next week had been rekindled after one-time
Hurricane Ernesto wilted on its approach to Florida.

The U.S. space agency also won a potential third day for
the launch attempt after its Russian partners agreed to delay a
resupply mission to the $100 billion space station by a Soyuz
rocket.

“We had no damage. Zero. Nada,” said Kennedy Space Center
spokesman Bruce Buckingham on Thursday, after Ernesto left
Florida’s Atlantic coast and headed north.

Launch pad technicians have begun reattaching equipment
needed to prepare the shuttle for launch.

While Kennedy Space Center in Florida had been hunkering
down for the storm, NASA colleagues at the Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas, worked out an agreement with Russian space
officials that will give the shuttle an extra day for a launch
attempt if needed.

Under the deal, the next launch of a Soyuz rocket to the
space station will take place on September 18, not September
14.

“The shuttle is to take a large amount of cargo to orbit.
U.S. shuttles and Soyuz spaceships with crews cannot be docked
at the ISS at the same time,” a Russian space industry source
told Reuters.

By agreeing to end the shuttle’s planned visit to the space
station on September 17, even if more work remained to be done,
NASA will have September 8, in addition to the previous two
days, for launch attempts, said Johnson Space Center spokesman
Rob Navias.

Russia needs to launch its Soyuz capsule with the next
space station crew by September 18 to ensure the returning crew
can land back on Earth during daylight, and before the capsule
currently aboard the station exceeds its design lifetime.

Atlantis’ mission will be NASA’s first to resume
construction of the orbital complex since before the 2003
Columbia disaster, in which seven astronauts died when their
ship fell apart over Texas.

Two shuttle missions since Columbia tested safety upgrades
aimed at avoiding a repeat of the accident.

Atlantis will be carrying a $372 million truss segment that
contains a second pair of power-producing solar arrays and a
rotary joint to keep the panels tracking the sun.

NASA needs to complete assembly of the half-built station
before the shuttles are retired in 2010.

(Additional reporting by Moscow bureau)