Atlantis has good tank fill-up, but weather may delay STS-122 launch

William Atkins
Thursday, 07 February 2008 18:23

Science - Space

Weather, however, seems to be the biggest problem for the launch. Meteorologists are predicting a 70% chance of rain, clouds, and severe thunderstorms in and around launch time at 2:45 p.m. EST.

Weather is predicted to improve slightly on Friday and Saturday, but not improve drastically until next week. NASA will make a decision later in the morning about whether to postpone Thursday’s launch or not.

If the mission is scrubbed on Thursday (with a launch window from 2:40:25 p.m. to 2:50:25 p.m.), NASA has other launch windows on subsequent days.

Friday’s launch window is 2:17:56 p.m. to 2:22:56 p.m., 
Saturday’s window is 1:52:11 p.m. to 1:57:11 p.m., and
Sunday’s launch window is 1:26:30 p.m. to 1:31:30 p.m.

The launch windows are based on being able to launch Atlantis into an orbital plane similar to that of the International Space Station so that it will be able to dock and deliver the ESA Columbus scientific laboratory.

To find out your local time for the launch of STS-122, please go to: TimeZoneConverter.com (or various other time zone programs on the Internet).

Mission activities, including three spacewalks, will be conducted to place the Columbus laboratory in its new location on the space station and to hook up its power and fuel lines.

The launch and the spacewalks will be covered on NASA TV. For more information on live television coverage, please go to: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html