NASA technicians are preparing space shuttle Atlantis for its four-mile journey to Launch Pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center on Monday, July 31, the agency announced Wednesday. First motion is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time. Atlantis' launch window begins Aug. 28 for an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.
The fully assembled space shuttle vehicle, consisting of the orbiter, external tank and twin solid rocket boosters, will be mounted on a mobile launcher platform and delivered to the pad via a crawler transporter. The process is expected to take approximately six hours, NASA said.
NASA TV will provide live coverage of the roll out beginning at 6 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday as Atlantis approaches the launch pad.
The STS-115 mission launch window will run through Sept. 7. After that, a launch would conflict with a Soyuz mission scheduled to fly to the ISS in mid-September.
If the mission goes according to plan, the Atlantis crew is scheduled to install the Port 3/4 truss segment with its two large solar arrays on the station.
The STS-115 crew consists of commander Brent W. Jett Jr., pilot Christopher J. Ferguson, mission specialists Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joseph R. Tanner, Daniel C. Burbank and Steven G. MacLean, who represents the Canadian Space Agency.
