Shuttle managers now are targeting Wednesday to move space shuttle Atlantis to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
First motion of Atlantis from Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, to the pad is targeted for 12:01 a.m. EDT.
The shuttle was towed Oct. 6 from its hangar, Orbiter Processing Facility 1, to the VAB in preparation for its STS-129 mission to the International Space Station. However, an issue with a crane that was being used to transfer Atlantis for attachment to its external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters caused a delay in operations. That in turn caused additional workload on teams in the VAB who also are working on preparing NASA’s Ares I-X rocket for rollout to Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B on Oct. 19. Ares I-X is targeted to launch on its flight test on Oct. 27. Today, shuttle managers added 24-hours to Atlantis’ rollout preparations to provide relief to the work force.
The one-day change to the rollout still will allow managers to target Atlantis’ launch for Nov. 12. It also does not affect the practice countdown, known as the terminal countdown demonstration test, and associated training for Atlantis’ six astronauts and ground teams, which is set to begin Oct. 19.
The STS-129 astronauts wrapped up their week at Johnson Space Center by completing two-days of equipment reviews related to the items they will use during their mission.