STS-122 Launch

[ChrisW]

Slated for a 4:31 launch, Atlantis is looking at a 90% chance for launch tomorrow. I'm flying down to DAB to meet up with a friend at Riddle and we're driving down to the Cape, returning via MLB. Anyone else plan on attending the launch?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

[nikon50bigma]

I wish more launches would be on the weekends, it would be great to see one of those things lift off.

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

I'll be watching from my front yard just north of DAB.

[flyboy 28]

Wish I could.

Going to a launch is one of the major things I want to do after I get out of high school.

[stuart schechter]

It is so cool! I have only seen an unmanned rocket go up. I really forget what it was. I watched from right outside Kennedy Space Center on the roof of the space camp, where I was at the time.

[Ari707]

NASA scrubs Atlantis launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA called off Thursday's launch of space shuttle Atlantis after detecting problems with fuel gauges in the shuttle's external tank.


Atlantis stands ready for launch at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Officials will try again Friday to launch the shuttle, NASA said.

Two of the four sensors in the shuttle's liquid hydrogen tank indicated that the tank was dry, even though there was fuel inside. Three sensors must be working properly to fly, a NASA spokesman said.

The sensors are critical to ensure that the shuttle's three main engines don't shut down too soon or too late during liftoff.

Problems with the sensors have delayed shuttle launches before, most recently in September 2006.

When it launches, Atlantis will carry a crew of seven and Europe's long-awaited space station lab, named Columbus.

About 750 Europeans connected to the scientific laboratory -- a $2 billion project begun nearly a quarter-century ago -- are in town for the launch.

Columbus is "our cornerstone, our baby, our module, our laboratory," said Alan Thirkettle, the European Space Agency's station program manager.

Columbus will be the second laboratory added to the space station. NASA's Destiny lab made its debut in 2001, and Japan's huge lab Kibo -- which means hope -- will go up in three sections beginning on the very next shuttle mission in February. Watch more about what's at stake during the mission »

Scientific work will start almost immediately inside Columbus, which is essentially packaged and ready to go.

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Thirkettle sees Columbus as a stepping stone for Europe to the U.S.-led moon expeditions planned for late in the next decade. To gear up for that, NASA is under presidential orders to finish the space station and retire its three remaining shuttles in 2010.

Counting Atlantis' upcoming flight, that leaves 12 shuttle missions to the space station and one, next summer, to the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he doesn't expect that number to change, which means some space station equipment and experiments will never make it up.


Aside from the interruption caused by the 2003 Columbia tragedy, the actual building of the space station in orbit has gone well, Griffin said. That's in stark contrast to the space station's planning and development, which dragged on for years and contributed to Columbus' prolonged grounding.

"We the United States, as the senior partner in the space station coalition, did not plan it well," Griffin said on the eve of Columbus' launch. "It has taken far too long and I'll just leave it at that."

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

They will give it another try tomorrow, Saturday December 8, 2007.