Arriving from Houston, the Atlantis crew is seven minutes early. They will arrive at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center about 10:23 a.m.
Today's weather forecast showed a 60 percent chance a front could delay Atlantis' Thursday launch by at least 24 hours.
On an 11-day mission with three spacewalks scheduled, Atlantis is being prepared for launch on a trip to the International Space Station. With a connector that caused intermittent signals replaced and a kinked Freon hose straightened, engineers are tracking no issues before launch.
Watch The Flame Trench for coverage of crew arrival. Countdown begins at 5 p.m.
Atlantis' commander, Stephen Frick, and pilot, Alan Poindexter, are a pair of steady former U.S. Navy fighter pilots, with more than 800 carrier landings between them. The mission specialists include Leland Melvin, a research scientist and former wide receiver drafted by the NFL in 1986; Rex Walheim, an Air Force colonel and experienced spacewalker; Hans Schlegel, a German physicist who flew on a shuttle mission 15 years ago; Stanley Love, an astronomer; and Leopold Eyharts, a French fighter pilot who will remain at the space station in place of U.S. flight engineer Dan Tani.
NASA plans 10 to 12 more shuttle flights before the program stops flying in 2010. The agency tenatively plans to retire Atlantis after an August mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
STS-122 Fact Sheet
Weather forecast
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
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