The Atlantis astronauts completed a checkout today of systems critical to atmospheric reentry and landing while mission managers kept close tabs on rainy weather in the Kennedy Space Center area.
The shuttle and its crew will have three opportunities to land at NASA's shuttle homeport on Saturday, the first coming at 10:01 a.m. With a poor weather forecast in the cards, the astronauts performed a series of course correction burns earlier this week to bring in the possibility of the 10:01 a.m. landing opportunity.
The first chance had been around 11:40 a.m., and forecasters hoped to beat the seasonal sea breeze that typically can sweep clouds and rain into the area during afternoon hours.
NASA deputy shuttle program manager LeRoy Cain said the agency does not plan to call up Edwards Air Force Base on Friday. Entry flight director Norm Knight will make a call on the use of Edwards on Saturday if bad weather keeps the crew in orbit an extra day.
The official forecast for landing at KSC on Friday calls for a chance of thunderstorms, lightning or rain showers within 30 miles of the landing strip, and there also is a chance of a low cloud ceiling that would obscure the view of the field on final approach.
Any of those conditions would violate NASA flight rules.
The shuttle crew earlier today checkout out the orbiter's flight control system, and they also hot-fired the spaceship's Reaction Control System thrusters. No problems cropped up during either test.
Coming up later today: the crew will conduct a deorbit review with Mission Control.
The astronauts also will testify before a Senate committee hearing and conduct a round of interviews with all the major television networks.
Check out the times for the events here in the latest revision -- Rev J - of the NASA TV Schedule
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
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