spacetoday.net: NASA presses ahead with Thursday shuttle launch

NASA presses ahead with Thursday shuttle launch

Posted: Sat, Feb 2, 2008, 5:06 PM ET (2206 GMT)
STS-122: Shuttle on pad before launch (NASA/KSC)

NASA shuttle managers have decided to move ahead with plans to launch Atlantis on Thursday after coming up with a fix for a kinked radiator hose. The hose, which carries Freon to a radiator in the shuttle's cargo bay, failed to retract properly because of a kink in the hose. Engineers have developed a fix whereby technicians will use a pole to manually guide the hose into its storage container on Sunday. Assuming that work goes as planned, NASA will start the official countdown for the STS-122 mission on Monday afternoon, in advance of a launch at 2:45 pm EST (1945 GMT) Thursday.