Space shuttle Atlantis headed for Earth on Wednesday as its crew awaited the results of a final heat shield inspection. A camera attached to the shuttle's robotic arm surveyed the wings and nose cap after Atlantis undocked from the international space station Tuesday. NASA engineers study those images to make sure the shuttle can withstand the intense heat of re-entering Earth's atmosphere before they give final approval for a Thursday landing at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The shuttle's flight control system, used to steer Atlantis once it re-enters the atmosphere, checked out fine on Wednesday. During the crew's nearly 10 days at the space station, the astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays, and activated a rotating joint that allows the new solar arrays to track the sun. The mission was extended to give them time to repair a thermal blanket on the shuttle that peeled back during lift off. Even if the shuttle's heat shield is cleared for landing, the weather might not cooperate on Thursday.A front in the Florida panhandle was expected to send showers to the Kennedy Space Center both Thursday and Friday. "Get us some good weather for Thursday if you can. It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be good enough," shuttle commander Rick Sturckow told Mission Control.
Atlantis has enough fuel to orbit until Sunday, but managers want the shuttle to land by Saturday. The flight would only be extended to Sunday if there were technical problems that needed to be fixed.
In a daily report sent up to the astronauts Wednesday morning, Mission Control said landing opportunities at Kennedy, the primary landing site, look slightly better on Friday and Saturday. A backup landing site in California might be considered on Friday. That backup site plus another in New Mexico would be activated Saturday if necessary. Atlantis was only cleared to leave the space station after Russian computers there passed a test Monday to take control of the station's thrusters. The computers had crashed last week but were revived over the weekend. On Atlantis, the astronauts had turned off equipment to conserve fuel in case the shuttle needed to stay longer. (CNN)
