Launching Atlantis
Forecasters gave the space shuttle Atlantis a 50% chance of liftoff today, saying storms could force a delay. Mission facts:
Scheduled liftoff: Today, 7:55 a.m. PDT.
Payload: A $125-million NASA communications satellite used to relay pictures and data from space shuttles, the Hubble Space Telescope and other spacecraft.
Duration: Nine days.
Experiments: Dozens of experiments are aimed at designing life support and computer systems for long-term manned flights aboard NASA’s planned space station Freedom. They include crew exercises, safety drills and germination of spinach seeds for a potential space station garden. One experiment will test whether 60 wasps devour wastes.
Crew: Four men and one woman.
Problems: The launch has already been postponed one day to fix an electrical circuit controlling the shuttle fuel tank’s detachment from the orbiter after launch. Minor repairs were also made to a four-inch crack found on a floor beam of the orbiter.
Landing: Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 2.
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