Discovery To Land Saturday; Atlantis Moves To Launch Pad Tuesday

Space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, March 31... three days after its sister ship Discovery is scheduled to land at KSC following completion of its STS-119 mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis is targeted to lift off May 12 on STS-125, to service NASA's Hubble Space Telescope one final time. As ANN reported, Atlantis' original targeted launch on October 10, 2008 was delayed when a system that transfers science data from the orbiting observatory to Earth malfunctioned on September 27. The orbiter has sat in the Vehicle Assembly Building ever since.

Meanwhile, the STS-119 crew onboard Discovery is expected to complete their mission with a Saturday afternoon landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Wheels down at the Shuttle Landing Facility is slated for 1:43 pm EDT on March 28. The return to Earth will conclude a 13-day flight, which nine of those days spent docked to the station.

The entry flight control team in Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will evaluate weather conditions at Kennedy before permitting Discovery to return to Earth. Saturday's landing opportunities at Kennedy are at 1:43 pm and 3:19 pm If weather prevents a Kennedy landing Saturday, the secondary landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, CA will be activated Sunday for consideration as well.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/shuttle