Posted: Fri, Jun 22, 2001, 1:54 PM ET (1754 GMT)
The space shuttle Atlantis was rolled out to its launch pad Thursday in preparation for a mission to the International Space Station next month. The shuttle completed the rollout to pad 39A Thursday morning, one day later than planned after thunderstorms led shuttle managers to stop Wednesday's rollout attempt just after it started. NASA is planning to launch Atlantis on mission STS-104 no sooner than 5:05 am EDT (0905 GMT) July 12; a firm launch date will be announced next week. The main purpose of the mission is to install a airlock module on the Unity module of the station. The mission has been delayed a month because of problems with the station's robotic arm, which is required for the installation. Those problems appear to have been resolved: SPACE.com reported that the ISS crew put the arm through a series of maneuvers Thursday without any problems that plagued arm tests last month and earlier this month.
