Space Shuttle Atlantis set for move to launch pad

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2006

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Space Shuttle Atlantis will be taken to its launch pad Monday ahead of its planned August 28 liftoff on a mission to resume construction of the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said.

The orbiter with its huge external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters will be mounted on a mobile launcher platform that will crawl to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The four-mile (six-kilometer) trip takes about six hours.

Atlantis has a launch window that opens August 28 and closes September 7.

The 11-day mission will be just the third since the February 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster and the first of 16 missions to complete construction of the half-finished ISS.

Atlantis will carry six...

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