Live In Orbit: Storms Could Thwart Friday Landing

The Atlantis astronauts aim to make a supersonic slide back through the atmosphere Friday, but stormy weather at the Kennedy Space Center could force NASA to keep the crew up in space another day.

Now in the home stretch of a successful Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, the astronauts will have two opportunities to land at NASA's shuttle homeport on Friday: 10:00 a.m. and 11:39 a.m.

But forecasters say there is a good chance of thunderstorms, lightning, rain and low cloud ceilings within 30 miles of the shuttle runway at KSC.

"The weather is iffy as you know," NASA astronaut Gregory "Box" Johnson told the crew Thursday from the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"As you know, weather changes rapidly in Florida. We do think that there is a possibility that we could land at KSC tomorrow, so we'd like to go though the nominal timeline, and we'll play it as it comes."

Atlantis mission commander Scott Altman concurred with the plan.

"We flew over today, and it looked kind of nasty at the moment, but we saw clearing behind it maybe, so we're hoping as well, and we will continue to stay in sync with you and plan on following the nominal timeline, and we'll be ready to burn if it looks good," Altman said.

"Good plan," Johnson replied.

NASA mission managers are not calling up back-up runways at Edwards Air Force Base on Friday because the shuttle can produce enough power to remain in space until Monday if need be.

NASA prefers to land in Florida because it costs about $1.8 million to ferry an orbiter back to KSC from California.

If the weather forces NASA to keep Atlantis in orbit another day, Entry Flight Director Norm Knight would decide whether to call up Edwards for landing attempts on Saturday or Sunday.

The weather at KSC is expected to improve gradually over the weekend. Edwards is expected to be clear both Saturday and Sunday.

"We've got lots of options and lots of opportunities and we'll continue to work it," Johnson told the crew.

ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge the NASA images of the ground tracks for a landing on Orbit 165 of the ongoing Atlantis mission. The 10 a.m. opportunity is the first of two the Atlantis crew will have to land at KSC on Friday.