Posted: Wed, Jul 11, 2001, 10:56 AM ET (1456 GMT)
The countdown towards Thursday morning's launch of the shuttle Atlantis continues with uncertain weather still the primary concern. Shuttle managers said Wednesday morning that there are no technical issues that would prevent Atlantis from lifting off on mission STS-104 at 5:04 am EDT (0904 GMT) Thursday morning. However, weather forecasts continue to call for a 40 percent chance of unacceptable weather at launch time that would delay the launch by at least 24 hours. Officials said late Tuesday one of the trans-Atlantic abort landing sites, Ben Guerir, Morocco, will be unavailable for the mission as terrorism concerns led NASA not to staff the site. Two other landing sites in Spain will be available, and the closed Morocco site will not delay the launch. When launched, Atlantis will dock with the International Space Station and install an airlock module on the station's Unity node.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article on closed Morocco site
•  spaceflight.nasa.gov information about STS-104