30 Percent Chance Of Weather-Related Delay

NASA reports at Wednesday's Launch Readiness News Conference, the Mission Management Team announced they were in agreement that Space Shuttle Atlantis is ready to fly on Friday.

"The team is ready to go and we're just really excited to be at this point after a very long and arduous spring and a lot of really hard work by the entire team," said LeRoy Cain, launch integration manager for the Space Shuttle Program. "I'm very proud of the team."

NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach reported the countdown is going fine, and there no significant issues to report.

The forecast for launch day, according to US Air Force Lt. Col. Pat Barrett, weather officer from the 45th squadron, remains at a 30-percent chance of violating launch constraints. A high-pressure ridge is expected to move to the north, though, which could help clear out any thunderstorm activity over Kennedy Space Center.

Should that come to pass, it would mark one of the few times weather will have cooperated for the oft-delayed shuttle's launch.

Originally scheduled to fly in early March, Atlantis' trip to the International Space Station had to be put off following a late-February hailstorm at KSC. The hail chipped off hundreds of small fragments from the protective foam covering the shuttle's external fuel tank, requiring a series of innovative-but-time-consuming spot repairs.

Things are looking markedly better this time around, though. At 10:30 pm EDT Thursday, the protective rotating service structure will be rolled away from the space shuttle. External tank fuel loading is scheduled to begin at around 9:30 am EDT Friday.

As ANN reported Wednesday, launch countdown for Atlantis officially began at 9 pm EDT Tuesday, at T-43 hours. Included in the countdown is nearly 28 hours of built-in hold time prior to a targeted 7:38 pm EDT launch on Friday.

FMI: www.nasa.gov