Making progress towards launch

The Astrovan, carrying the STS-135 crew, passes the launch control center and press site en route to the pad.

So far, everything is going well for today’s launch. Tanking was completed at 5 am without incident, and no technical problems have been reported. The forecast still has only a 30% chance of acceptable weather, [...]

Tanking underway

Tanking of the space shuttle Atlantis started on schedule at 2:01 am EDT (0601 GMT), and is scheduled to be completed by about 5 am. The weather forecast remains unfavorable, with a 30% chance of acceptable weather. As of 3:30 am there was no rain at or near KSC, although skies are cloudy. Shuttle [...]

Yes, weather is still a problem

Thursday started out cloudy and dreary, and only got worse. The tropical wave forecast earlier in the week reached the Cape in full force by later in the day Thursday, with some torrential downpours at times, along with some thunder and lightning, but no other severe weather. (At one point I and dozens of other [...]

Weather the main obstacle to Friday’s launch

NASA officials brief the media about the status of the STS-135 countdown on Wednesday morning. (NASA/KSC)

At the L-2 (i.e., two days before launch) briefing Wednesday morning, NASA officials made it clear that, for now, only one thing was standing between them and a launch Friday morning of Atlantis: the weather. The briefing took [...]

Hopefully the sign is right

It’s a little hard to read, but it says “2 Days to Launch”

MMT says “go”, weather says “maybe not”

The Mission Management Team gave their unanimous approval this morning to proceed with the launch of Atlantis on Friday morning. However, the weather forecast is getting a little worse: forecasts now are calling for only a 30 percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time, down from 40 percent yesterday. (On the bright side, that [...]