NASA braces for space shuttle launch from Florida

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The weather looked
favorable for Wednesday’s launch of the space shuttle Atlantis
on a mission to resume construction of the International Space
Station for the first time since 2003, NASA officials said on
Tuesday.

The forecast had worsened slightly from Monday, but
officials saw only a 30-percent chance of a delay due to clouds
and possible rain around the Kennedy Space Center in central
Florida at takeoff time.

“Everybody on the team is ‘go’ and in good spirits,”
Kennedy Space Center shuttle manager LeRoy Cain told a briefing
on Tuesday morning. “We’re ready to press ahead.”

Managers at the U.S. space agency planned to reconvene at
1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 GMT) on Wednesday to make a final decision
about whether to fuel the shuttle for a launch attempt at 12:29
p.m. (1629 GMT)

NASA can try to launch Atlantis and its six-member crew on
Thursday or Friday if weather or technical problems postpone
Wednesday’s liftoff. The mission was to have begun last week
but was delayed after a lightning strike on the shuttle’s
seaside launch pad and a storm.

The Atlantis mission will be the first dedicated to
expanding the half-built, $100 billion International Space
Station since the space shuttle Columbia exploded in 2003.

Construction of the station, a multinational effort led by
the United States and Russia, began in 1998.

RACING TIME

The space station is still operating on temporary power and
cooling systems, which support a U.S. science laboratory, a
connecting node, two airlocks, living quarters, a fuel storage
module, five pieces of structural truss and other equipment.

More than a dozen major components are awaiting rides on
the shuttles, the only vehicles designed to haul them into
orbit.

Atlantis’ payload bay is filled with a 17.5-tonne double
truss segment containing a pair of solar arrays expected to
double the electricity available for the station’s systems and
equipment.

NASA needs the additional power for laboratories built by
the European Space Agency and Japan set to launch beginning
next year. Before the labs are installed, NASA must finish the
station’s truss, and add two more sets of solar arrays in
addition to the one being delivered aboard Atlantis.

Astronauts also are being tapped for a massive rewiring of
the station’s power and cooling systems.

“This is clearly a very complicated task,” shuttle program
manager Wayne Hale said.

“It’s very difficult to compare it to moonwalks or other
things we have done in the past,” Hale added. “Clearly these
are the most complicated spacewalk and assembly tasks that have
ever been done before.”

NASA is racing the clock with just three shuttles to finish
assembling the space station before the winged spacecraft are
retired in 2010. The U.S. agency lost Columbia on February 1,
2003, in an accident that claimed the lives of seven
astronauts.

Instead of the expensive and labor-intensive shuttles, NASA
wants to return to flying capsules launched aboard expendable
rockets that can travel to the station as well as the moon.