NASA preparing for final shuttle launch

Wed Jul 6, 2011

NASA is getting ready for the final flight of the US shuttle program as the Atlantis orbiter is being prepared to pay its last visit to the International Space Station.

Despite existing concerns about the weather, shuttle Atlantis is set to launch at 11:26 a.m. EDT on Friday, carrying cargo and astronauts, Reuters reported.

Meteorologists have predicted a cloudy sky in central Florida on Thursday and thunderstorms right around Friday's launch time.

"I wish I had a better weather briefing for you," Air Force meteorologist Kathy Winters told reporters on Tuesday, adding that the chance of an on-time liftoff was 40 percent.

The Atlantis launch will be the final in the 30-year-old US space shuttle program and the last one from the Kennedy Space Center for a while.

"The team gets into the mode of 'this is launch countdown' and that's really the focus that everybody has," said NASA official Jeremy Graeber. "To do it one more time is a great feeling."

NASA is remodeling one of the shuttle's two launch pads for commercial purposes, hoping to use the second launch pad for a heavy-lift rocket to send astronauts and cargo to destinations beyond the space station's 220-mile-high orbit.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/187797.html.