By TonyF on 23 May 2009 at 7:51AM
For the second day in a row, snotty weather at KSC has forced NASA to postpone Atlantis' landing. In order to save the $1 million cost of flying the orbiter back to Florida on the back of a specially modified 747 jet, it was decided to keep the astronauts in orbit one more day instead of going for a California landing today.
Status Report #24 at NASA. Landing blog at NASA. More clips at Space Multimedia. Live video at SFN. Discussion at Nasaspaceflight. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
By TonyF on 23 May 2009 at 6:32AM
Will Flight Day 13 be homecoming day for Atlantis? The crew got the go-ahead to don their Launch and Entry Suits, but the first of today's six landing opportunities has already been waved off. NASA reports:
Image above: The STS-125 crew poses for a photo on the middeck of space shuttle Atlantis. Pictured on the front row are Commander Scott Altman (center), Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, and Mission Specialist Megan McArthur. Pictured on the back row (left to right) are Andrew Feustel, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Michael Good, all mission specialists. Photo Credit: NASA
Six landing opportunities are available for space shuttle Atlantis and the STS-125 crew to return to Earth today.
Atlantis’ first landing opportunity is at 9:15 a.m. EDT on orbit 180. If controllers elect to take it, Commander Scott Altman will perform the deorbit burn at 8:01 a.m. to begin the descent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There are two other opportunities available for Atlantis to land at Kennedy, as well as three opportunities at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
The first California landing opportunity would start with a deorbit burn at 9:29 a.m., and result in landing at 10:45 a.m.
Thunderstorms, low clouds and showers prevented Atlantis’ astronauts from landing yesterday at Kennedy.
Atlantis arrived at the Hubble Space Telescope on May 13, and the STS-125 crew performed five spacewalks on five consecutive days to repair and upgrade the telescope.
STS-125 is the 126th shuttle mission.
› View landing ground tracks
Landing blog at NASA. Real-time tracking at N2YO. Landing pics and video will be at KSC. More clips at Space Multimedia. Live video at SFN. Discussion at Nasaspaceflight. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.
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