Live In Orbit: Weather Borderline For Landing

The Atlantis astronauts have closed the shuttle's clamshell-like payload bay doors and are switching flight software on their ship to the program used to guide it through atmospheric reentry and landingt.

With seven astronauts aboard, Atlantis is slated to land at Kennedy Space Center at 9:15 a.m., winding up a highly successful mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mission managers are keeping close tabs on the weather, but at this point, conditions are good enough to proceed with preparations for the shuttle's scheduled return to Earth.

NASA Chief Astronaut Steve Lindsey is off in a T-38 training jet, flying weather reconnaissance in the area around Cape Canaveral. Mission Control says the weather is dynamic and borderline, but NASA is hanging on to hopes that conditions will be clear enough for landing.

The astronauts have just been given a go to don their partial pressure launch-and-entry suits.