Mission STS-120 launches over two months late
Atlantis has been grounded for several months due to a malfunction in the sensor system, but NASA is now confident that they were able to repair them and confirm the launch on February 7, at 21:47 Israel time.
A minor concern still comes from the direction of the cooler (radiator) pipe that refuses to close and settle inside its storage box when the shuttle's trunk doors are closed. However, the engineers believe that this is a minor fault that can be easily resolved.
Atlantis is supposed to launch the European Space Laboratory Columbus into space to the International Space Station. The 13-ton laboratory, which cost 1.3 million euros to build, is the largest European contribution to the station's research missions. The laboratory will be used to perform scientific experiments in zero gravity conditions. The Columbus Laboratory will be installed by the Atlantis team jointly with NASA and the European Space Agency.
In response to the science site's question about the delay in the launch of the shuttle Atlantis, which was asked at the press conference with the astronauts at the Fisher Institute's annual space conference, astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria said: "We as astronauts cannot know more than the technicians working on the particular problem. Before every launch, we always seek to minimize the risk and it is never possible to completely eliminate them. But if there is a system that does not perform what is assigned to it, we must do everything to have it fixed and not take any risks. This is what they did, it had to be done. NASA has a history of successful testing, and engineers now have a good solution to the problem.”
