[MilCom] Tomorrow's Shuttle landing scrubbed

[AllanStern at aol.com]

Landing delayed 24 hours; possible heat shield inspections after unusual  
object spotted below shuttle

NASA managers today ordered the Atlantis  astronauts to stop their landing 
preparations and to delay re-entry 24 hours to  Thursday to give flight 
controllers additional time to assess the implications  of an unusual object spotted 
earlier today flying below the shuttle.

The  origin of the object is unknown, but NASA managers want to make sure 
whatever it  is did not come from any critical systems on Atlantis, including its 
heat shield  tiles and wing leading edge panels.

"The MMT just met and they decided,  based on this weather they've been 
having down in Florida in combination with  this object we saw, we're going to wave 
off tomorrow," Terry Virts radioed from  mission control just before noon. 
"Our FAO, our timeliners aer working very hard  right now to come up with a plan 
for tomorrow and we'll certainly get you any  words we have on that as soon 
as we can."

"Of course, our big interest is  whether or note we're going to be doing any 
robotics tomorrow," commander Brent  Jett replied.

"That is a possibility. We've got the flight controllers on  console now and 
... that's our question, too."

The astronauts may be  asked to unlimber Atlantis' robot arm Wednesday, pick 
up the ship's heat shield  inspection boom and carry out an unplanned 
inspection of the shuttle and its  heat shield. Earlier inspections showed no signs of 
any problems.

Given a  fairly bleak weather forecast for landing time Wednesday, NASA's 
Mission  Management Team made the decision to delay a day with little debate, a 
source  said. The forecast for Thursday and Friday calls for good weather at 
the Kennedy  Space Center.

A news conference with shuttle Pgm Mgr Wayne Hale is now on  NASA TV.
 
 
AL STERN  Satellite Beach FL
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