{"id":5641,"date":"2009-11-13T11:48:48","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T15:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.nasa.gov:\/\/aad2c3f0669a5c290fdc06207b670e03"},"modified":"2009-11-13T11:48:48","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T15:48:48","slug":"sts-129-launch-countdown-begins-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=5641","title":{"rendered":"STS-129 Launch Countdown Begins Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At today&#8217;s launch countdown status briefing held at NASA&#8217;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managers reported space shuttle Atlantis, its payload and crew are ready for launch at 2:28 p.m. EST on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>  NASA Test Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson reported everything is progressing on schedule for Atlantis&#8217; 31st flight to deliver the crew, two Express Logistic Carriers and other necessary parts to the International Space Station. <\/p>\n<p>  &quot;Our teams here at Kennedy Space Center, as well as all the NASA centers around the country, have worked very hard preparing this hardware for flight,&quot; said Blackwell-Thompson. &quot;We&#8217;re all looking forward to the mission that lies ahead.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>  Scott Higginbotham, the STS-129 payload manager, said the processing of the payload for this mission has been a difficult and challenging race for his team. &quot;But we&#8217;re smiling today,&quot; Higginbotham said. &quot;Because we crossed the finish line and we survived.&quot; Final inspections were completed and the payload bay doors were closed for flight this morning. <\/p>\n<p>  Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters reported weather is looking very good for launch day and for the loading of propellants into Atlantis&#8217; external fuel tank. At this time there&#8217;s only a 10 percent chance of weather hindering a successful launch on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>  At 1 p.m. today, NASA&#8217;s official launch countdown clock begins counting backward toward Monday&#8217;s liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>  Tune into the STS-129 mission&#8217;s pre-launch news conference that will be aired tomorrow at no earlier than 11 a.m. EST on NASA TV and on the web at www.nasa.gov\/ntv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At today&#8217;s launch countdown status briefing held at NASA&#8217;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managers reported space shuttle Atlantis, its payload and crew are ready for launch at 2:28 p.m. EST on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>  NASA Test Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson reported everything is progressing on schedule for Atlantis&#8217; 31st flight to deliver the crew, two Express Logistic Carriers and other necessary parts to the International Space Station. <\/p>\n<p>  &quot;Our teams here at Kennedy Space Center, as well as all the NASA centers around the country, have worked very hard preparing this hardware for flight,&quot; said Blackwell-Thompson. &quot;We&#8217;re all looking forward to the mission that lies ahead.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>  Scott Higginbotham, the STS-129 payload manager, said the processing of the payload for this mission has been a difficult and challenging race for his team. &quot;But we&#8217;re smiling today,&quot; Higginbotham said. &quot;Because we crossed the finish line and we survived.&quot; Final inspections were completed and the payload bay doors were closed for flight this morning. <\/p>\n<p>  Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters reported weather is looking very good for launch day and for the loading of propellants into Atlantis&#8217; external fuel tank. At this time there&#8217;s only a 10 percent chance of weather hindering a successful launch on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>  At 1 p.m. today, NASA&#8217;s official launch countdown clock begins counting backward toward Monday&#8217;s liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>  Tune into the STS-129 mission&#8217;s pre-launch news conference that will be aired tomorrow at no earlier than 11 a.m. EST on NASA TV and on the web at www.nasa.gov\/ntv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":612598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5641","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\/5641","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions\/5645"}],"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=5641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}