NASA Trying Again to Land Space Shuttle
Posted on: Friday, 22 June 2007, 12:13 CDT
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA managers said they plan to land the space shuttle Atlantis safely Friday, but the weather would determine the time and location.
The same conditions that prevented a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday - rain showers and low clouds - were still prevalent Friday.
The backup landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California, was expected to have clear skies, though, and wind gusts there were not expected to pick up until late in the day.
"Our mindset down here is we're going to land you somewhere safely today," Mission Control told the shuttle crew.
After getting the latest weather report, the seven astronauts closed the shuttle's payload bay doors, which are kept opened during flights to keep heat from building up. Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow said the crew would put on their orange spacesuits for landing.
"That sounds great, Houston," Sturckow said. "We're going to suit up then."
The crew has five chances Friday to land, the first at 2:18 p.m. EDT in Florida and the last at 6:59 p.m. EDT in California. If the weather spoils all those opportunities, mission managers would try again Saturday, with another backup landing site in New Mexico in the lineup.
The preferred landing site is Kennedy, where it is easier and far cheaper to get Atlantis to its hangar to be prepared for its next mission in December. If it lands in California, it would cost $1.7 million and take up to 10 days to get the shuttle home to Florida aboard a jumbo jet.
Atlantis has enough power for its systems to orbit until Sunday, but managers don't want to wait that long. The flight would be extended to Sunday only if technical problems needed to be fixed.
During Atlantis' two chances to land Thursday, showers were within 34 miles of the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center, and clouds hung below an altitude of 8,000 feet, both violations of flight rules.
During the crew's 14-day mission to the international space station, the astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays and activated a rotating joint that allows the new solar arrays to track the sun.
Originally scheduled for 11 days, the mission was extended by two days to give astronauts time to repair a thermal blanket that had peeled away during the June 8 launch. Astronaut Danny Olivas stapled it back into place during a spacewalk. An extra day in orbit was added after the weather in Florida prevented a landing Thursday.
The shuttle's visit to the space station was complicated by the crash of Russian computers that control orientation and oxygen production.
Atlantis helped the station maintain its orientation for several days until the computers were revived. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov used a cable to bypass a circuit board.
The cosmonauts at the space station attempted to power the Russian computers Thursday without using the cable bypass, but it was unsuccessful.
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Associated Press writer Juan A. Lozano contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Shuttle: http://www.nasa.gov/mission-pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
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