WASHINGTON, 17 August 2006: NASA declared Wednesday the Atlantis shuttle ready to launch on August 27 on the first mission aimed at completing construction of the International Space Station since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
"We have set the launch date again for the 27th," Bill Gerstenmaier, the NASA associate administrator for space operations, said in a televised news conference from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "We are ready to go for that."
NASA officials voted unanimously to go ahead with the launch after a two-day flight readiness review, Gerstenmaier said. The shuttle has an August 27-September 13 launch window.
The Atlantis flight will be the third shuttle mission since Columbia disintegrated over Texas in February 2003.
The previous two Discovery missions, last year and in July, focused on testing shuttle repair techniques and reducing the risk of damaging foam insulation peeling off the orbiter's external fuel tank during liftoff. Columbia was doomed by a large piece of foam that pierced its heat shield during launch.
Despite backing the Atlantis launch date, two officials called for the quick redesign of foam known as ice frost ramps, a concern that had been raised in the last Discovery mission by NASA's top engineer and safety officer, officials said.
But NASA administrator Michael Griffin said officials concluded that the astronauts' safety was not at risk and that they could take refuge in the ISS if the shuttle were to suffer irreparable damage.
"We don't feel we are risking crew and no one in the room felt that we were risking crew," Griffin said.
"People ... want to get on record that although the answer is go, we really need to redesign these ice frost ramps, and as I said earlier nobody disagrees," he said. "This is not an argument we are having."
The fuel tank has been redesigned to reduce the risk of large pieces of foam peeling off. Smaller pieces of foam fell off Discovery's tank in July, and the shuttle was unscathed.
A technical issue also arose during the readiness review, as officials discussed a design flaw in bolts attaching an antenna to the orbiter, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. NASA will likely have to replace the bolts, he said.
The Atlantis shuttle mission is the first of 16 planned flights aimed at completing the ISS by 2010. The orbiting laboratory is a cornerstone of US ambitions to send manned flights to the moon again, and eventually to Mars.
After the Discovery shuttle's two successful safety improvement flights, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was ready to get back to ISS construction work.
Ensuring that the astronauts return home safely remains a top priority, however, as safety measures tested in the two post-Columbia flights will also be used in the Atlantis mission.
Cameras will record the shuttle's launch to detect any potentially damaging debris, the astronauts will use the shuttle's robotic arm to scan its heat shield in orbit, and the commander will manoeuver the vessel into a backflip so its underbelly can be photographed.
The Atlantis mission will be the first to attempt the assembly of a major portion of the ISS since December 2002. The six Atlantis astronauts will deliver a pair of giant solar antennas that will double the station's ability to generate power from sunlight.
They will also install a 17.5-tonne structure that will serve as a foundation for European and Japanese laboratories in future missions.
Three spacewalks are planned for construction work during the 11-day mission.
The crew will be commanded by Brent Jett and co-piloted by Chris Ferguson. The four mission specialists will be Daniel Burbank, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joe Tanner and Canadian Steve MacLean of the Canadian Space Agency.
