Weather a worry as NASA astronauts board space shuttle for final launch

[News_Editor]

Weather a worry as NASA astronauts board space shuttle for final launch

2011-07-08 21:26:17 GMT+7 (ICT)

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER (BNO NEWS) -- Four NASA astronauts boarded the space shuttle Atlantis on Friday morning as the crew prepares for the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program, although weather remains a concern that could delay the launch.

Atlantis' Commander Chris Ferguson and his three crewmates, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim, are scheduled to begin a 12-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with a launch at 11.26 a.m. EDT on Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

But with less than 2 hours before launch, there was only a 30 percent chance of favorable weather conditions at 11.26 a.m. EDT. Launch Director Mike Leinbach told the launch team earlier that NASA would "have a shot at this" on Friday, but some feared the weather could postpone the launch until a later point.

Nonetheless, NASA's countdown clock continued and all four astronauts were aboard Atlantis in preparation of the flight. The hatch for flight was closed at about 9.21 a.m. EDT and the agency said there were no major technical issues that could threaten the launch.

Atlantis' STS-135 12-day mission will deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module filled with supplies and spare parts to sustain ISS space station operations after the space shuttles are retired. The mission also will fly the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), an experiment designed to demonstrate and test the tools, technologies and techniques needed to robotically refuel satellites in space.

The crew also will return an ammonia pump that recently failed on the station. Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and improve designs for future spacecraft.

STS-135 is the 135th shuttle mission, Atlantis' 33rd flight, and the last scheduled flight of the Space Shuttle Program which began with STS-1 in April 1981 with the launch of the space shuttle Columbia. The program has seen scores of historic milestones, although its existence has also been marked by several disasters that nearly caused the cancellation of the program.

In January 1986, all 7 crew members of the space shuttle Challenger were killed when their spacecraft broke apart during launch and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida. And in February 2003, another seven astronauts were killed when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Debris from the spacecraft fell over parts of the United States.

After the end of the Space Shuttle Program, NASA will put its focus on deep space missions with the to-be-built, heavy-lift Space Launch System which will carry its astronauts out of low Earth orbit. Future missions will include an unmanned mission to an asteroid in 2016 and eventually to Mars.

"We are not ending human space flight, we are recommitting ourselves to it and taking the necessary -- and difficult -- steps today to ensure America's pre-eminence in human spaceflight for years to come," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said earlier this month. "We have to get out of the business of owning and operating low-Earth orbit transportation systems and hand that off to the private sector, with sufficient oversight to ensure the safety of our astronauts. American companies and their spacecraft should send our astronauts to the ISS, rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments."

He added: "Our destinations for humans beyond Earth remain ambitious. They include: the moon, asteroids, and Mars. The debate is not if we will explore, but how we'll do it."

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-07-08

[elcent]

more lunch than launch, lol.