NASA managers today ordered the Atlantis astronauts to stop their landing preparations and to delay re-entry 24 hours to Thursday to give flight controllers additional time to assess the implications of an unusual object spotted earlier today flying below the shuttle.

The origin of the object is unknown, but NASA managers want to make sure whatever it is did not come from any critical systems on Atlantis, including its heat shield tiles and wing leading edge panels.


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"The MMT just met and they decided, based on this weather they've been having down in Florida in combination with this object we saw, we're going to wave off tomorrow," Terry Virts radioed from mission control just before noon. "Our FAO, our timeliners aer working very hard right now to come up with a plan for tomorrow and we'll certainly get you any words we have on that as soon as we can."

"Of course, our big interest is whether or note we're going to be doing any robotics tomorrow," commander Brent Jett replied.

"That is a possibility. We've got the flight controllers on console now and ... that's our question, too."

The astronauts may be asked to unlimber Atlantis' robot arm Wednesday, pick up the ship's heat shield inspection boom and carry out an unplanned inspection of the shuttle and its heat shield. Earlier inspections showed no signs of any problems.

Given a fairly bleak weather forecast for landing time Wednesday, NASA's Mission Management Team made the decision to delay a day with little debate, a source said. The forecast for Thursday and Friday calls for good weather at the Kennedy Space Center.

A news conference with shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale is scheduled for 12 p.m.

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