Mission To Lift Off At 1445 EST... At Last

NASA engineers and officials have waited almost two months to say these words: Atlantis is ready.

One week from today, the space agency expects to send the space shuttle Atlantis on its oft-delayed mission to the International Space Station. NASA senior managers completed a review Wednesday of the shuttle's readiness for flight, and pending resolution of an issue with a radiator hose, the STS-122 mission will launch February 7 at 1445 EST.

During a Tuesday inspection of Atlantis, one of four hoses that carry Freon to the shuttle radiators in the payload bay (shown below) was found bent and not properly retracted in its storage box. The others were fully retracted into their storage boxes, as expected. Teams are continuing to gather data and assess any potential forward work. Managers will convene Saturday to further review and analyze what, if any, remaining work is required before launch.

"Right now, that hose is perfectly functional," said Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale. "Since the hose is not leaking now and the sister hose on Discovery didn't leak on a number of flights, I'm feeling very positive we'll come to a good conclusion. But we have to do our work here, the engineers have to do their work and we want to make sure we know what we're doing before we go fly this vehicle."

During the 11-day mission, Commander Steve Frick and his crew of six will install the European Space Agency's new Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. Columbus will expand the research facilities of the station and provide scientists around the world with the ability to conduct a variety of life, physical and materials science experiments. The mission will include three spacewalks, delivery of a new crew member to the station and the return of another astronaut after nearly four months aboard the complex.

Atlantis' launch date was announced at the conclusion of Wednesday's executive-level Flight Readiness Review. The one-day video teleconference meeting was led from NASA Headquarters in Washington. Top NASA and contractor managers assessed any risks associated with the mission and determined whether the shuttle's equipment, support systems and procedures are ready for flight.

The first executive-level Flight Readiness Review for STS-122 was held November 30; as ANN reported, the mission was delayed in December 2007 after failures occurred in a fuel sensor system while Atlantis' external fuel tank was being filled. A December 18 tanking test revealed open circuits in the external tank's feed-through connector were the most likely cause of false readings in the system during launch attempts two weeks before.

A modified connector was designed with pins and sockets soldered together. Both the original and modified connector configurations were subjected to testing that verified that the new design corrects the open circuits found in the original connector.

The sensor system is one of several that protect the shuttle's main engines by triggering their shutdown if fuel runs unexpectedly low. NASA's current Launch Commit Criteria require that three of the four engine cutoff, or ECO, sensors function properly before liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Joining Commander Frick on STS-122 will be pilot Alan Poindexter and mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love and European Space Agency astronauts Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts. Eyharts is slated to replace current station crew member Dan Tani, who has lived on the outpost since October. Eyharts will return to Earth on shuttle Endeavour's STS-123 mission, currently targeted for launch on March 11, 2008.

(Photos courtesy of NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov/shuttle