Live At KSC: Atlantis Aims For 10 AM Landing

Shuttle Atlantis is packed up and its Hubble Space Telescope servicing crew is ready to return to Earth, but NASA mission managers will be keeping close tabs on the weather at Kennedy Space Center.

Atlantis and seven astronauts are scheduled to land at 10 a.m., but the latest official forecast is grim. Meteorologists said Thursday there was a good chance of thunderstorms, lightning and rain showers within 30 miles of the landing strip today.

They also predicted a high probability of a low cloud ceiling that would obscure the view of the landing strip on final approach.

Any of those conditions would prevent mission managers from giving the shuttle crew a green light to return to Earth.

"The weather for KSC on Friday, I'll tell you, it doesn't look great," NASA Entry Flight Director Norm Knight said. "There's a low pressure (system) sitting over Central Florida, it's been sitting there for several days, Florida's received quite a bit of rain and we're just waiting for that system to move out. So it's really a matter of timing as to when that system is going to move."

But it turns out Mother Nature might be cooperating.

The line of storms soaking Florida's Space Coast gradually moved to the west late Thursday afternoon and evening, and there's consequently a chance that conditions will be acceptable for landing at KSC.

Three more lines of storms, however, were building over the Caribbean, and they appear to be headed for the east coast of Florida. So it all could come down to exactly when the next line of storms sweep through the KSC area.

NASA will have two opportunities to bring Atlantis home today. The second landing opportunity would come at 11:39 a.m.

Here's a look at the crew's timeline for the day:

++2:01 a,m.: Crew wakes.

++4:51 a.m.: Deorbit preparations begin.

++6:10 a.m.: Payload bay door closure.

++8:48 a.m.: Deorbit burn.

++9:42 a.m.: Atlantis acquired by C-band radar at MILA tracking station at KSC.

++10 a.m.: Landing at KSC.

The first real indicator of how things are going to unfold today will come with a "go/no-go" decision for the payload bay door closure at 6:10 a.m.

If the weather forecast remains grim, Entry Flight Director Norm Knight might opt to forego the first opportunity at that point and hope the weather clears enough to bring the crew home at 11:39 a.m.

So stay tuned.

You can watch the action unfold live, too, here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the landing attempt.

And be sure to refresh this page for periodic updates.