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week mission, space shuttle Atlantis astronauts
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 20 - 02 - 2008


Atlantis' astronauts aimed for a morning
touchdown Wednesday to conclude a two-week mission that
expanded the international space station with the addition
of a new European lab, reported ap.
Forecasters expected nearly perfect weather for Atlantis'
planned landing at Kennedy Space Center, but crews were
standing by for a California landing just in case.
Atlantis' first landing path would take the crew over the
Pacific Ocean, Central America and the Gulf of Mexico
before touching down at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
NASA normally does not activate the West Coast landing
strip so early but it wants to get Atlantis down on
Wednesday if at all possible to give the Navy more time to
shoot down a dying spy satellite.
The government has indicated it plans take aim at the
satellite as early as Wednesday night, before it enters
Earth's atmosphere with a toxic load of fuel. But the shot
can't be fired until Atlantis has landed because it would
be dangerous for the shuttle to descend through the debris.
Although the Defense Department has a short window of
opportunity to shoot down the satellite, NASA officials
said they were under no pressure to hurry up the touchdown.
Atlantis will spend another day in space if the weather
turns bad at both landing sites, flight director Bryan
Lunney said.
NASA cleared Atlantis for landing after engineers finished
evaluating the latest laser images of the shuttle's wings
and nose and concluded there were no holes or cracks from
micrometeorites or space junk.
The astronauts inspected the especially vulnerable areas
Monday, after undocking from the international space
station.
After leaving the station, Atlantis experienced a heating
system failure that knocked out four small aft thrusters.
The thrusters are not needed for re-entry, but to prevent
any fuel line damage that could hold up Atlantis' next
flight, NASA had the pilots point the thrusters toward the
sun.
Atlantis' next mission is at the end of August when it
flies to the Hubble Space Telescope with a team of
repairmen. It will be NASA's last visit to Hubble.
The only other shuttle issue involved a radiator hose in
the payload bay that ended up bent before the flight. The
hose was straightened just before liftoff, and Atlantis
commander Steve Frick said the crew saw no abnormal bends
in it when the payload bay doors were closed early
Wednesday in preparation for landing.


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