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)