spacetoday.net: Atlantis rolled into VAB

Posted: Tue, Jul 25, 2006, 10:56 AM ET (1456 GMT)
STS-115: Atlantis rolled into VAB (NASA/KSC)

The space shuttle Atlantis was transferred to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in prepapration for a rollout to the pad for launch next month. While in the VAB Atlantis will be mated to its external tank and two solid rocket boosters; the stack will then be rolled out to the pad on Monday. NASA current plans to launch Atlantis on mission STS-115 during a launch window that opens August 27. the launch window will only remain open through September 7, about one week shorter than originally planned, to avoid schedulding conflicts with a Soyuz mission scheduled to fly to the ISS in mid-September. The launch will be the first mission for Atlantis since 2002.