spacetoday.net: NASA still planning September shuttle flight

Posted: Thu, Jan 29, 2004, 11:11 AM ET (1611 GMT)
STS-107: launch (NASA/KSC)

NASA officials said they believe that they can still return the shuttle to flight in September despite an independent report that claimed the agency had made uneven progress to date. Michael Kostelnik, NASA deputy associate administrator for the shuttle and station programs, said Tuesday that "there's not a show-stopper" to prevent the shuttle Atlantis from launching as early as September 12. He added that NASA would "like to be further along" at this time, but was confident the work needed to safely resume shuttle flights would be done in time for a September launch. Last week the Stafford-Covey Task Group, an independent panel chaired by two former astronauts, concluded that the agency still had a lot of work in front of it before the shuttle could resume flights. However, that panel did not attempt to assess whether that would could be completed by September. NASA officials also said they plan to change the Shuttle Life Extension Program (SLEP), an effort to develop technologies and techniques that would have been needed to keep the shuttle flying as late as 2020, to instead focus on near-term needs, given the agency's plan to phase out the orbiter by the end of this decade. The agency is also looking at future shuttle-derived systems that would use the external tank, shuttle main engines, and solid rocket boosters, but without the orbiter itself or a crew, as a way of carrying very large payloads into orbit.