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Atlantis no longer seeks shelter and returning to pad BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: August 29, 2006 Launch director Mike Leinbach, buoyed by a more favorable forecast for tropical storm Ernesto, ordered engineers to stop the shuttle Atlantis' trip back to the Vehicle Assembly Building today and instead to return to the ship to the launch pad. The National Hurricane Center now expects Ernesto to bring sustained winds of 45 knots to the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday, with gusts to 60 knots. That's within NASA's safety limits and the protection provided by wind screens and the massive rotating service structure that surrounds the shuttle on the pad. Atlantis' rollback began at 10:04 a.m. after a long debate about the forecast and whether to ride out the storm at the pad. In the end, Leinbach decided predictions of 65-knot gusts were too much and the slow move began.
It is not at all clear how this decision might affect when Atlantis might be ready for launch. Leinbach said earlier it would take eight days to ready the ship for flight whenever it was returned to the pad from a rollback. Given the impact of Ernesto and other factors, it's not clear whether NASA can complete preparations before time runs out.
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Space shuttle Atlantis is delivered to Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B on August 2 to begin final preparations for blastoff on the STS-115 mission to resume construction of the International Space Station.
Just after 1 a.m. local time August 2, the crawler-transporter began the slow move out of the Vehicle Assembly Building carrying space shuttle Atlantis toward the launch pad.
Space shuttle Atlantis is transported to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building where the ship will be mated to the external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters for a late-August liftoff.
VIDEO:
OFFICIALS EXPLAIN INITIAL SCRUB 