spacetoday.net: Shuttle cleared for Thursday launch

Posted: Sat, Dec 1, 2007, 6:06 AM ET (1106 GMT)

NASA managers approved plans on Friday to launch the space shuttle Atlantis on a mission to the International Space Station this Thursday. Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on mission STS-122 at 4:31 pm EST (2131 GMT) Thursday, December 6. The main goal for the mission's seven-person crew will be to deliver the European lab module Columbus to the station, attaching it to the Harmony module that was added to the station on the previous shuttle mission. An air leak reported in the Harmony module earlier this week will not pose an obstacle to the mission, and NASA officials said Friday they think the "leak" was simply an instrumentation error and not an actual loss of air from the station.