The countdown for the final space shuttle launch began today at 1 p.m. EDT, starting at the T-43 hour mark. However, the launch-day weather forecast looks less than favorable for Friday’s 11:26 a.m. liftoff. <\/p>\n
At the 10 a.m. precountdown status briefing this morning, NASA Test Director Jeremy Graeber reported space shuttle Atlantis is ready for flight, and STS-135 payload manager Joe Delai said the payloads are ready to go as well. The only issue standing in the way of liftoff on Friday is a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms developing along the sea-breeze front reported Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer.<\/p>\n
After flying to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida yesterday, the STS-135 astronauts today are reviewing their flight data file and conducting checks of their launch and entry suits.<\/p>\n
At Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A, technicians have completed space shuttle Atlantis’ aft confidence checks and final preparations of the main propulsion system.<\/p>\n
Despite storms in the area over the extended weekend, there were no reports of adverse weather or lightning strikes inside the launch pad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The countdown for the final space shuttle launch began today at 1 p.m. EDT, starting at the T-43 hour mark. However, the launch-day weather forecast looks less than favorable for Friday’s 11:26 a.m. liftoff. <\/p>\n
At the 10 a.m. precountdown status briefing this morning, NASA Test Director Jeremy Graeber reported space shuttle Atlantis is ready for flight, and STS-135 payload manager Joe Delai said the payloads are ready to go as well. The only issue standing in the way of liftoff on Friday is a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms developing along the sea-breeze front reported Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer.<\/p>\n
After flying to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida yesterday, the STS-135 astronauts today are reviewing their flight data file and conducting checks of their launch and entry suits.<\/p>\n
At Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A, technicians have completed space shuttle Atlantis’ aft confidence checks and final preparations of the main propulsion system.<\/p>\n
Despite storms in the area over the extended weekend, there were no reports of adverse weather or lightning strikes inside the launch pad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":612598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shuttle-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109444,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109424\/revisions\/109444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/612598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}