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Liftoff may be Monday

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 15, 2009

CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA has cleared space shuttle Atlantis for liftoff Monday on a trip to stock the International Space Station with several years' worth of spare parts. Mission managers gave the go-ahead Saturday as forecasters put the odds of good launch weather at 90 percent.

Atlantis will deliver nearly 30,000 pounds of pumps, storage tanks, gyroscopes and other spare parts, along with six astronauts who will unload everything.

The goal is to take up as many large parts as possible to keep the space station running for five to 10 years after the shuttle program ends next fall.
Liftoff remained scheduled for 2:28 p.m.

A stockpiling mission does not require lots of spacewalking work, said Mike Moses, chairman of the mission management team. The astronauts will use some of their time outside to get ready for the next shuttle flight in February, when a new window-domed room is taken up.

Only six shuttle missions remain, including this one.

Atlantis will bring back astronaut Nicole Stott, who's been on the space station since August.

Also returning on the shuttle will be a broken piece of the station's water-recycling unit. The part that converts the astronauts' urine into drinking water has failed; engineers intend to fix it and send it back on the next shuttle flight.

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