NASA managers announced Thursday that they would press ahead with the first space shuttle launch of the year next week, three months later than originally planned because of a hailstorm that pockmarked the spacecraft’s external tank.
After a two-day meeting at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA officials agreed to launch Atlantis at 6:38 p.m. CDT on June 8 on a mission to deliver a new pair of solar arrays to the International Space Station.
The launch had been set for mid-March, but the storm dropped golf ball-size hail on the launch pad and damaged insulating foam on the tank.
NASA managers are especially cautious when it comes to the external tank since a piece of foam fell off Columbia’s tank in 2003 and hit the spacecraft’s wing. Damage from the impact allowed fiery gases to penetrate Columbia during descent, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
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Items compiled from Tribune news services.
