If all goes according to plan, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis, after a successful mission, will be landing today (1:55 PM EDT) in Florida — weather permitting. The area is currently experiencing some on-again, off-again thunderstorms and if they increase in intensity the shuttle may have to be diverted to its alternate landing site in California at Edwards AFB on Friday. If, for some unexpected reason this second landing site is not acceptable, the Atlantis crew can change its orbit to head toward New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor for touchdown this weekend.
“No landing is easy with weather, and we’re used to it,” said Norm Knight, NASA’s lead entry flight director. “I’m always optimistic about it.”
The seven-astronaut crew, led by Shuttle Commander Rick Sturckow, had a very busy and successful 13-day mission while visiting the International Space Station (ISS), installing struts, trusses, solar panel arrays, power supplies and repair of an unexpected computer system crash. All this is in preparation for the next major module additions to the ISS which will increase its size of habital space and labs expected to take place before the end of this year.
After an intense inspection and repair job of some minor damage to the Shuttle’s surface on lift-off two weeks ago, Atlantis undocked from the ISS two days ago in preparation for its trip home to Earth.
When the Atlantis lands safely today (or this weekend) it will be one of the most successful missions to date. Over the course of the mission astronauts engaged in four different spacewalks to get the solar panal array set up on the station’s starboard side and inspection and repair to the damage done to Atlantis.
Returning to Earth after six months aboard the ISS is astronaut Sunita Williams. Replacing her is astronaut Clayton Anderson.
“I just can’t wait to get back [to my family, husband and dog], to feel the air on my face and feel the sea breeze,” Williams told reporters Wednesday.
Everyone at NASA and the Kennedy Space Center are geared up and ready for a flawless touchdown and keeping a close eye on the weather.
Delayed due to weather. Try again tomorrow.
The crew is now scheduled to land Friday at 2:18 pm EDT in Florida. If weather is a problem again, they have some opportunities to land at Edwards in California. Failing that, they’ll try again Saturday.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that we don’t have a launch/landing site in the middle of the dessert somewhere? Seems like weather would be much less of an issue out in the middle of Nevada, for instance.
There are probably all kinds of logistical, beaurocratic, traditional and downright arcane reasons, but yeah. It makes perfect sense to me to have the site out there. Maybe in the middle of Arizona…
Or Nebraska – lots and lots of wide open sandy places in Nebraska – miles and miles of nothing but sandhills. We do get some nasty tornadoes from time to time – but not as many as Florida.
Atlantis is the shuttle that took up the Firefly and Serenity DVDs, yeah?
Yep! that is correct Bronzethumb.