Digital Journal — NASA says its scheduled launch of Atlantis on Aug. 27 has been given the green light after safety reviews of the shuttle were completed.
“We set the launch date for the 27th, I think it’s around 4:30 in the afternoon, so we’re ready to go for that,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, at a news conference at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The launch window for Atlantis falls between Aug. 27 and Sept. 13, and astronauts will spend 11 days in space doing construction on the unfinished International Space Station.
Atlantis will be the first flight to resume work on the $100-billion, half-finished space station since the shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry in 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
The shuttle’s mission will be the first of 16 flights aimed at completing construction on the International Space Station by 2010. During the flight, six astronauts plan to conduct several spacewalks and install a second set of solar panels to help power the space station.
Investigators deemed Columbia’s accident to be a result of insulation foam that tore a hole in the left wing upon liftoff. The gap allowed hot gas to enter the orbiter two weeks later while it was re-entering Earth’s orbit.
Atlantis’s team is comprised of Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean, 52, U.S. navy veterans Cmdr. Brent Jett Jr., Christopher Ferguson, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joseph Tanner and Daniel Burbank.
