Atlantis Rollout Faces Additional Delays

Shuttle Atlantis appears as if it will spend the better part of the week in Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building while NASA meteorologists and program managers keep close tabs on Tropical Storm Hanna.

Still aiming to hug the east coast of Florida as it heads north, Hanna weakened into tropical storm early today after spinning up to a hurricane over the Labor Day holiday weekend.

NASA decided Monday to scrap plans to move Atlantis to launch pad 39A early today, and the agency is leaning toward keeping the shuttle in the 52-story KSC assembly building until after Hanna passes later this week.

Managers are considering options that would keep NASA poised to roll out Atlantis on Thursday, but the shuttle might remain in the assembly building until Saturday.

"It's been fairly unpredictable," said KSC spokesman Allard Beutel. "We're going to follow it and make our decisions appropriately."

A hurricane alert, meanwhile, was issued at the space center earlier today. The shuttle homeport now is in Hurricane Condition Four, which means that winds exceeding 50 knots are expected in the area within 72 hours.

Atlantis is officially targeted for launch Oct. 8, but managers already had been looking to move the launch back to Oct. 10 or Oct. 11 as a result of time lost to Tropical Storm Fay. The center was closed down three days late last month due to high winds and heavy rains from that storm.

The delay in rollout as a result of Hanna likely will push the target launch date back even further. And it will make it more difficult for NASA to launch two missions before a Nov. 25 deadline.

Endeavour now is slated to liftoff Nov. 10 on an International Space Station outfitting mission.

The sun angle on the station between Nov. 25 and Dec. 17 will be such that the outpost will not be able to generate enough power or dispel enough heat to support a docked shuttle mission.

NASA also would opt not to fly the mission over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, so a delay beyond Nov. 24 effectively would push the Endeavour flight back into January.

IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the latest projected path for Tropical Storm Hanna. It was issued earlier today by the National Hurricane Center in Miami.