Countdown On For Shuttle Launch

The shuttle Atlantis' countdown is ticking toward a launch attempt Wednesday between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.. reports CBS News Space Analyst William Harwood. Under NASA's post-September 11 security policy, the exact launch time will not be announced until 24 hours before liftoff. Likewise, the agency would not say in advance when the countdown began, but it is believed to have started Sunday evening.

NASA test director Jeffrey Spaulding said Monday morning the countdown is proceeding smoothly and there are no technical problems of any significance at pad 39B.

"I'm pleased to be back here today to report the STS-112 launch countdown has begun and things are proceeding very well," Spaulding said. "The shuttle Atlantis is in excellent shape as we continue preparations for Wednesday's launch."

The weather is another issue, of course, and forecasters are predicting a 40 percent chance of isolated showers that could delay launch Wednesday, says Harwood. If launch is delayed, the odds improve to 70 percent "go" Thursday and 80 percent go Friday. Atlantis has enough on-board supplies to make four launch attempts over five days.

The Atlantis astronauts flew to the Kennedy Space Center Sunday to prepare for launch.

"It has been a while since we've been in launch countdown," Spaulding said, referring to the shuttle's fleet's grounding earlier this summer. "The systems on the vehicle look great and the launch team is ready to go."

It's been a summer of discontent for the folks at NASA.

First, hairline cracks were discovered in each of the space shuttles, grounding all flights.
Then bigger cracks were found in the platforms used to transport the shuttles to their pads.

For one retired NASA engineer, the cracks point out just how old the space shuttle fleet is - and how vulnerable.

"Not only is it old, but they tested the dang-gone thing to death" during the three-year moratorium on flights following the Challenger explosion, said Don Nelson, whose career spanned Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle.

He's pushing for a full-fledged escape system, and until then limited crews of four, because "there's always something in there that's a potential" for disaster.

"A failure rate of 1-in-500 is nothing to brag about," Nelson said. "It's a terrible failure rate when you're talking about carrying human passengers."

In the first space shuttle flight since June, Atlantis will carry up six astronauts, including David Wolf, who lived on Russia's Mir space station following the near-catastrophic collision of 1997. He is satisfied with the crack repairs but worries the time-consuming work may have diverted attention from other potential problems.

"Therein lies the real risk induced by the cracks," Wolf said.

The space shuttle fuel lines just above the main engines were found to be cracked in all four ships. Engineers suspect the flaws may have been around since the program began in 1981 but escaped detection.

Although the cracks were small and in some cases almost invisible, NASA worried they might grow and send metal fragments hurtling into an engine like shrapnel, with catastrophic results.

Unprecedented welding was ordered, and all flights were put on hold in the first grounding of the fleet since 1999, when damaged wiring halted launches for five months.

The much larger cracks in the Apollo-era shuttle haulers popped up in the bearings. NASA surprisingly was able to order more of the giant bearings, initially used to support moonships.

"Crack plus crack plus crack equal sky is falling," said Kennedy Space Center's director, Roy Bridges, exasperated by the complaints. "The sky is NOT falling."

Bridges acknowledges that much of Kennedy's Apollo-era equipment and buildings need to be modernized, given that the space shuttles face another decade or two of flight. He had hoped to have an up-to-date computer system in the launch control center two years ago, but the project fell behind, threatened to cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than planned and, as a result, was canceled two weeks ago.

In its latest annual report, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel criticized NASA for putting off maintenance and improvements to shuttle-related equipment and buildings.

"If restoration continues to be delayed, it will reach a point at which it may be impossible to recover," the panel warned. "At best, this will be a costly nuisance prompting delays and the need for expedited repairs. At worst, safety can be compromised."

That best-case scenario already played out with the shuttle transporters. The last time Atlantis was being readied for liftoff, in April, a pipe on the exterior of the Apollo-era launch platform cracked and clouds of highly flammable hydrogen fuel billowed into the air. The flight was postponed nearly a week while NASA fixed the ruptured line.

"Everybody would be thrilled to death if the good fairy came and told us there was enough money to rebuild all our infrastructure," said flight director Phil Engelauf. "But I don't think that there's any sense that we can't continue to operate with the hardware that we've got. We just need to keep ourselves focused on keeping it all maintained."

That's good news for Jerry Goudy, the master welder who repaired Atlantis' cracked plumbing. "As the fleet ages, welders will be a hotter item," he said with a smile.

CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood has covered America's space program full time for more than 15 years, focusing on space shuttle operations, planetary exploration and astronomy. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood provides up-to-the-minute space reports for CBS News and regularly contributes to Spaceflight Now and The Washington Post.