Posted: Thu, Aug 17, 2006, 8:15 AM ET (1215 GMT)
NASA managers on Wednesday chose August 27th as the launch date for the next shuttle mission, provided that two issues with the shuttle Atlantis are resolved by then. Officials said that they are still studying whether bolts holding an antenna in place in the shuttle's cargo bay should be replaced; if they decide this week to make that change, the repair would take place next week. Engineers are also still studying the cause of a thermostat malfunction with one of the shuttle's hydraulics units during the STS-121 mission last month. The potential of damage to the orbiter from foam shedding off the external tank was not a major issue in this review, unlike for the STS-121 mission. Should those problems be resolved, Atlantis would launch at 4:30 pm EDT (2030 GMT) on mission STS-115. The primary purpose of the mission is to install a solar power truss on the station, the first major assembly work on the station since before the Columbia accident in 2003.
