Storms Force Shuttle to Scrub Thursday's Landing Tries

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis skipped its two landing opportunities Thursday because of showers and clouds at Kennedy Space Center.

The showers were within 34 miles, and there were clouds within 8,000 feet of the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center, both violations of flight rules, NASA said.

"We looked as hard and long as we think is reasonable and the rain showers and (cloud) ceilings are going to keep us from making it into Florida today," Mission Control radioed Atlantis' seven astronauts.

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The shuttle has five more landing opportunities over the next three days.

Mission Control said opportunities at Kennedy, the primary landing site, look slightly more promising on Friday and Saturday. Opportunities to land at Kennedy on Friday are at 2:16 p.m. and 3:52 p.m. EDT.

On Friday, NASA also could consider using a backup landing site in California on two chances. NASA bumped up by 1½ hours the first chance in California to 3:50 p.m. EDT to avoid expected high winds. The second opportunity was for 6:56 p.m. EDT but that might change.

That backup site plus another in New Mexico would be activated Saturday if necessary.

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Atlantis has enough power for its systems to orbit until Sunday, but managers want the shuttle to land by Saturday. The flight would only be extended to Sunday if there were technical problems that needed to be fixed.

NASA managers prefer landing at Kennedy since there would be less cost and time in preparing Atlantis for its next mission in December.

It would cost $1.7 million and take up to 10 days to bring the shuttle back to Florida from California aboard a jumbo jet.

"Obviously, we would prefer to stay at the Cape if we can," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

Mission managers held an unusual, last-minute meeting Wednesday to clear up three remaining technical issues involving the shuttle.

Material known as gap filler appeared to be sticking out of a wing, a thermal blanket had peeled back during the June 8 launch, and debris was found floating after Atlantis undocked from the international space station Tuesday.

Engineers had wanted to make sure the gap filler could withstand the heat and aerodynamics of re-entry and recheck data on the thermal blanket, which was repaired during a spacewalk last week. Mission managers have said the debris may have been ice.

During the crew's 13-day mission to the international space station, the astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays and activated a rotating joint that allows the new solar arrays to track the sun.

The mission was extended by two days to give astronauts time to repair the thermal blanket.

Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow said he was confident the repair job would hold up.

"Everything looks great," he said Wednesday in an interview with reporters.

The shuttle's visit to the space station was complicated by the crash of Russian computers that control orientation and oxygen production.

But the computers were revived several days later after cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov used a cable to bypass a circuit board. Astronauts conserved the shuttle's power in case they needed to spend an extra day at the station.

"When we left, they had the computers up and running," said Sunita "Suni" Williams, who was returning on Atlantis after spending more than six months at the space station. "I think there are some fixes they are going to need to do, but the station is fine right now. It's back to its normal condition."

Like any polite houseguests, Atlantis' astronauts did their best to clean up after themselves and followed the instructions of their hosts in Mission Control before landing.

"The dirty towels can be put in a laundry bag and stowed in the airlock," Mission Control wrote in instructions sent to the crew.

While Sturckow got a haircut from Yurchikhin before leaving the space station, Williams said a haircut was the one of the many things she was looking forward to back on the ground.

Williams, whose nest of raven trusses defied gravity at the space station, set the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman.

"I'm looking forward to going to the beach and hopefully taking a walk with my husband and my dog on the beach," she said. "I can't wait for a good piece of pizza."