How the wind blows away

Shuttle Atlantis could be hidden in a hangar from a hurricane

NASA management has again postponed the launch of the Atlantis space shuttle, this time for an indefinite period. It is difficult to suspect the leaders of the US Aerospace Agency of superstition, but the reason for the cancellation of the flight was a chain of truly mystical coincidences. Atlantis was originally scheduled to launch last Sunday. However, the day before, when all ground services were already counting the hours until the launch, the launcher was struck by lightning. Fearing that a huge electrical charge could damage the ship, the flight was postponed to August 29. Before the experts had time to finish checking the equipment and declare that the lightning that struck the lightning rod did not cause any harm to the ship, the sky prepared a new test for the ship. According to weather forecasters, the approaching Hurricane Ernesto should hit Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, the day the ship launches.

At an emergency meeting held yesterday, it was decided to postpone the launch, but experts still did not agree on whether the shuttle should be removed to the hangar or whether it could be left on the launch pad. According to weather forecasters, there is still a 50 percent chance that the epicenter of the hurricane will pass away from the cosmodrome. In this case, the ship can be left at the launch site, since, according to technical documentation, the shuttle should be removed to the hangar only if the wind speed exceeds 45 miles (72 km) per hour. Weather data is constantly being updated, so the decision to place Atlantis in the hangar will most likely not be made until this evening, when Tuesday arrives in the United States. Considering that dismantling requires at least two days, in this case the ship will have to be removed from the launch pad in hurricane-force winds.

To avoid such a development of events, the ground services of the cosmodrome prudently began yesterday to simultaneously implement both scenarios. According to shuttle launch program manager Leroy Cain, there are now two teams working at the spaceport: one is preparing the shuttle for launch, and the other is preparing for possible dismantling. He did not specify how both teams managed to coordinate their activities, but noted that on Sunday a heavy crane had already been sent to the launch site, and a giant platform had also been prepared for delivering Atlantis to the hangar.

Apparently, NASA management will try to avoid dismantling Atlantis at any cost, since in this case problems will likely arise, and not only technical ones. If the ship is placed in a hangar, it will take at least ten days to prepare it for launch again. In this case, NASA will not have time to launch before September 7, when the launch window for optimal launch of the shuttle closes. At the same time, the launch of the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft is scheduled for September 14, which, according to the original plan, was supposed to take the place of the shuttle at the ISS docking port. If the Americans do not have time to launch their spacecraft before September 7 in order to return it to Earth before September 14, then the entire strict flight schedule designed to ensure the speedy completion of the ISS construction will be disrupted. Either we will have to postpone the launch of the Russian ship, or wait for its return.

Alexander GUDKOV