spacetoday.net: Atlantis rollout stopped, delayed

Posted: Tue, Jan 2, 2001, 10:13 PM ET (0313 GMT)
The rollout of the shuttle Atlantis was stopped early Tuesday after a problem developed with the transporter moving the stack to the launch pad. The shuttle, attached to its external tank and solid-propellant boosters, had moved just a few hundred meters from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) en route to pad 39A when a computer system in the "crawler" transporter malfunctioned. Shuttle managers decided to move the shuttle back into the VAB; it will be rolled out Wednesday using a different crawler. The one-day delay moving the shuttle to the pad may also delay its launch, currently scheduled for January 19: Spaceflight Now reported that conflicts on the Eastern Range could delay the launch until January 24. Atlantis's mission, STS-98, will deliver the Destiny lab module to the International Space Station.