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Discovery's astronauts are closing the shuttle's payload bay doors in preparation for a landing attempt at Kennedy Space Center at 1:39 p.m., but flight directors will be keeping close tabs on the direction of gusty winds.
Circling high above the planet, the astronauts commanded the clam shell-like doors closed at about 9:53 a.m., marking a major milestone in plans to reenter the atmosphere and land at KSC's three-mile runway. They were given a go-ahead at 9:48 a.m.
The 1:39 p.m. opportunity is the first of two today. The second would come at 3:14 p.m. A go/no-go decision on the first opportunity is expected within 20 minutes of a planned 12:33 p.m. deorbit burn.
The weather forecast is pretty good.
Meteorologists expect a slight chance of a low cloud deck over the runway and gusty headwinds that would be within limits for a landing on Runway 15. The tailwind for a landing on Runway 33 might be above limits.
NASA astronaut Brent Jett is flying weather reconnaissance at this hour in a T-38 training jet. Jett will transition to a Gulfstream II Shuttle Training Aircraft in about an hour and make approaches to the runway to characterize wind conditions. The STA is modified to mimic the shuttle's brick-like dive to the landing strip. The final approach is seven times steeper than that of a commercial airliner.
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