Senior shuttle managers today recommended delaying the launches of this year's two remaining missions. Atlantis' launch on a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission would move from Oct. 10 to Oct. 14, at 10:19 p.m.
Endeavour's launch on a mission to the International Space Station would move from Nov. 12 to Nov. 16, at 7:07 p.m.
The new dates will not be official until senior NASA executives approve them during a flight readiness review scheduled next Thursday and Friday.
Shuttle managers felt the added days - technically five days for Atlantis, since two launch times were possible on Oct. 11 - were needed to allow the astronauts, ground crews and payload processors to make up time lost to tropical storms over the past month.
"This gives us a little bit of breathing room to make the target dates after all these systems slowed us down," said Allard Beutel, a Kennedy Space Center spokesman.
A news conference is scheduled next Friday at the spaceport, no earlier than 4 p.m., to announce the official launch dates. You'll be able to watch a webcast of live NASA TV coverage of the briefing here on The Flame Trench.
According to a NASA press release, briefing participants include:
- Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier
- Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs, Science Mission
Directorate Mike Luther
- Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon
- STS-125 Launch Director Ed Mango
The Atlantis astronauts were scheduled to return to Houston from the Cape at about 2 p.m. today, after completing a mock countdown exercise.
IMAGE NOTE: Click on the image above to enlarge it. Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour are shown last week on pads 39A and 39B, respectively - the first time since 2001 that shuttle have occupied both pads simultaneously. Photo credit: Mike Brown, FLORIDA TODAY.
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