NASA managers to decide whether to launch shuttle

NASA managers met on Thursday to decide whether to try one more time to launch space shuttle Atlantis or stand down for what could be as long as two months.

Photo: NASA managers to decide whether to launch shuttle

NASA managers to decide whether to launch shuttle

A problem with an electricity-generating fuel cell on Atlantis forced the space agency to scrub Wednesday's launch attempt. NASA officials were trying to decide whether the device needed to be replaced, which could delay any launch attempt by several weeks.

After this weekend, the next daylight launch opportunity is not until the end of October. NASA rules say Atlantis must lift off in daylight so that its big external fuel tank can be photographed for any signs of broken-off foam of the sort that destroyed Columbia 3Ѕ years ago.

If Atlantis does not get off the ground on Friday, NASA managers had two options they were reluctant to exercise that would permit a launch attempt before the end of October: Try on Saturday, or relax the daylight-launch rule.

By launching on Saturday, NASA would have to shorten its 11-day construction mission to the international space station, something Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager, has said he would not like to do given the complexity of adding a 17Ѕ-ton segment to the orbiting space lab, reports AP.

The mission would have to be curtailed since NASA made an agreement with the Russians to undock from the space station by Sept. 17 because Russia is sending a three-person Soyuz capsule to the space station on Sept. 18.

Relaxing the daylight rule would open up launch chances in late September and early October.

Atlantis' astronauts will restart construction on the half-built international space station for the first time since the Columbia disaster.