Atlantis Scheduled to Liftoff Today

Atlantis will lift-off today, with seven astronauts on board, in order to deliver the European space module Columbus, which will be docked to the Harmony module and will act as a laboratory. The shuttle will launch from the launch pad, located of the seaside at the Kennedy Space Center, somewhere around 21:31GMT, and has a probability of clear sky of about 90 percent.

Among the crew of the shuttle, there are: commander Stephen Frick, shuttle pilot Alan Poindexter, mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Hans Schelegel and Leopold Eyharts. Three of the crew mates will begin their spaceflight career with this mission, respectively Poindexter, Melvin and Love.

STS-122 mission has in plan to install the Columbus module, during three spacewalks spanning over eleven days, and will deliver a crew member for the International Space Station, which will swap place with one of the astronauts currently aboard the ISS. NASA will probably extend the mission for another two days, in order to make an extra spacewalk, with the role of inspecting the faulty rotary joint, which controls the movement of one of the ISS solar panels.

The 13 ton Columbus laboratory represents the culmination for ESA officials of more than 20 years of building the 1.4 billion Euro module, which carries several experiments related to the study of gravity on living beings and, when fully operational, it will host a complement of a crew of 6. During the installation phase of the module, Eyharts and Schelegel will have the honour to christen the module, being the first astronauts of the ESA who will take part in a long duration mission on the ISS, who will live and work in the laboratory. Commander Daniel Tani, on board the ISS, will return back to Earth with the space shuttle Atlantis and will swap place with the veteran French astronaut, on the 17th of December.

The STS-122 mission also represents the greatest number of shuttle space flights made by the shuttle, after the tragedy of the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, during re-entry.

However, the mission cannot be further delayed and must launch until the 13th of December, when the angles of the solar panel powering the ISS will make the installation of the module unfavorable, and in case the December 13 mark is missed, NASA will have to wait until 2nd of January before another launch attempt.