Atlantis Cleared for Tomorrow's Liftoff

Engineers evaluating the space shuttle's Atlantis readiness said yesterday that it will most likely launch tomorrow, in order to deliver the European space module Columbus to the International Space Station. The launch is scheduled to take place from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 2:45 ET. However, trouble is not far away, as meteorologists have predicted that the weather conditions would give the space shuttle a chance of only 40 percent of actually lifting into space.

Although a mass of cold air may move over the areas of Florida and there is a high probability for rain, shuttle managers remain optimistic and eager to get the first space shuttle of the new year into the Earth's orbit. LeRoy Cain, head of NASA's shuttle management team says: "The team feels like we're in a very good place to go fly on Thursday".

The space shuttle Atlantis was supposed to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center on 6th of December, however the launch was called off due to the malfunctioning of two of the four fuel gauges, which shut off the shuttles engines while running on a empty tank. A second attempt in December rendered all four fuel sensors nonoperational and the shuttle was brought into repair and maintenance procedures throughout the whole month of January.

The time lost due to the inability to launch doesn't affect only NASA, who is currently under extreme pressure to finish the construction of the International Space Station by 2010. The European Space Agency also has to suffer the consequences of such delays. For example, the European astronauts Leopold Eyharts which will arrive to the ISS with Atlantis, was supposed to stay on board until the month of March when he would have been replaced by another astronaut. Thus, instead of a planned stay of 12 to 13 weeks, Eyharts will probably remain for six to seven weeks.

Also, some members of the crew of the ISS should have been back on the surface of the Earth by now!

NASA is in a hurry to prepare the space shuttle Endeavor to take JAXA's Kibo module to the ISS, on March 12. The agency hopes that, by the end of this year, it will be able to complete a large proportion of the rest of the 13 scheduled build missions to the ISS, aside other resupply flights and service to the Hubble Space Telescope.