Weather Threatens NASA Shuttle Schedule
Posted on: Sunday, 27 August 2006, 15:00 CDT
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The chances of the space shuttle Atlantis launching this week diminished by the hour Sunday as NASA prepared for Hurricane Ernesto and the possibility of moving the spacecraft into shelter.
Workers on Sunday rolled to the launch pad a gigantic crane that could be used to move the shuttle back to the protection of the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building.
By early afternoon, no decision had been made on whether to use the crane or continue with a Tuesday launch attempt. Engineers must make that decision two days before the area is hit by wind of 45 mph.
Earlier Sunday, NASA delayed the launch from Monday to Tuesday in order to give engineers more time to figure out if a lightning strike Friday damaged the spacecraft's solid fuel rocket boosters and other systems. Lift off originally had been set for Sunday afternoon.
A National Hurricane Center forecast put the eye of Ernesto on Florida's west coast, due west of the Kennedy Space Center, on Thursday morning.
NASA runs into a severe time crunch for a September launch if the shuttle is moved inside. A day is needed to return the shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad, and then seven to 10 days are required after that to prepare for launch.
The launch window for this mission only goes through Sept. 13 because NASA wants to launch the shuttle to the space station during daylight so it can photograph the shuttle's external fuel tank, where insulating foam has fallen off during previous launches. The shuttle Columbia was doomed after foam hit a wing, causing a breach that allowed hot gases to penetrate during its return to Earth.
NASA hoped to launch Atlantis before Sept. 7 to prevent a traffic jam at the space station since a Russian Soyuz vehicle is set to blast off in mid-September carrying two new station crew members and a space tourist.
If NASA launches later, it will have to persuade the Russians to change their launch date and land at night - something the Russians do not want to do because they have a new private firm handling capsule recovery.
There were no immediate indications that any damage was caused by Friday's lightning bolt, one of the most powerful recorded at a Kennedy Space Center launch pad. Rather than hitting the shuttle directly it struck a wire attached to a tower used to protect the spacecraft from such strikes - but it created a strong electrical field around the vehicle.
The solid rocket booster system wasn't powered up at the time so engineers didn't get enough data about the lightning's effect on the boosters, which provide the main thrust to lift the shuttle off the launch pad, said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham.
Atlantis' planned mission is the first of 15 flights scheduled to finish constructing the half-built space station before the cargo-carrying shuttles are retired in 2010. Construction has been on hiatus since the 2003 Columbia disaster, which killed seven astronauts.
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AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
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