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<\/p>\n **LIVE STS-115 UPDATES**<\/em> \u2013 The most comphensive live update pages for STS-115 begins tomorrow. Stay tuned for live interactive updates, articles, images, free video and expert commentary throughout the countdown and launch (125,000 viewed STS-121\u2019s live event pages).<\/em><\/p>\n Storms in the area have been a concern, not only for the current requirements of preparing Atlantis, but also in regards to the weather constraints surrounding the final countdown on Sunday. It is expected that the weather will be classed as \u2018Red\u2019 during the count \u2013 hopefully clearing in time for the afternoon lift-off. <\/font> <\/p>\n The first assembly flight for four years \u2013 installing the P3\/P4 truss into the International Space Station\u2019s configuration \u2013 will require some good fortune from the weather for an on-time launch, although that remains a favourable scenario, with current constraints classed at 40 percent \u2018No Go\u2019 for Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n Despite the weather hampering the final preparations at the launch pad, Launch Director Mike Leinbach insisted that the launch countdown has flexibility to cope. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018What we had hoped to do was to get into our fuel cell reactant loading onboard the ship on Friday morning before the storms \u2013 and we were able to get the LOX on board before the weather hit.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n With the weather expected to calm down by late evening Florida time, Shuttle workers will continue with fuel cell loading, as they move towards Saturday evening\u2019s RSS (Rotating Service Structure) rollback, ahead of propellant loading on the External Tank. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re in a stand-down mode right now at the launch pad \u2013 but we\u2019ll load the LH2 into the fuel cells on Friday night, once the storms and lightning clear,\u2019 added Leinbach. \u2018Because we started the countdown early, we\u2019ll come out of fuel cell loading tonight about right on time.\u2019<\/p>\n Also noted by Leinbach was the lightning strike that stuck one of the launch pad\u2019s cable wires during today\u2019s storms. The strike didn\u2019t harm the orbiter, and the protection system at the pad complex did its job. <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018The countdown is going well, apart from a couple of minor issues,\u2019 he noted. \u2018We did have a lightning strike to the pad and we\u2019re carrying out all out tests and procedures, but right now we see no problems with the vehicle.\u2019<\/p>\n **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/u><\/p>\n <\/em><\/font><\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA and United Space Alliance workers are behind schedule in preparing Shuttle Atlantis for Sunday\u2019s launch, and are currently stood down due to storms in the local area in Florida. However, due to the early start in the launch countdown, processing at the pad is set to catch up in time to proceed with Atlantis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/em><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n
<\/font>\u2018We picked up the count on Thursday around noon time, which represented a six hour earlier start than we had originally planned,\u2019 said Leinbach. \u2018We did that to beat the afternoon weather that we\u2019re experiencing. <\/font><\/p>\n
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<\/em><\/font>LIVE UPDATE PAGES<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n