Shuttle crew returns to Florida

The commander and crew of the space shuttle Atlantis meet prior to lift-off. Picture / Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The crew of the US space shuttle Atlantis returned to Florida today to prepare for a new launch attempt on Nasa's first International Space Station assembly mission in nearly four years.

The US space agency had intended to launch the shuttle last week, but a tropical storm and a lightning strike at the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center derailed those plans.

Instead of blasting into orbit, Atlantis commander Brent Jett and his five crew mates headed back to their training base in Houston as the shuttle began a day-long trek back to a hangar for shelter from Tropical Storm Ernesto.

When the storm lost strength, mission managers decided to reverse course and return the shuttle to the launch pad. That gave Nasa a few more days to get Atlantis off the ground before having to delay the mission for nearly two months.

Liftoff is now targeted for 12:29 p.m. EDT (1629 GMT) on Wednesday. If weather or technical problems intervene, Nasa also can make launch attempts on Thursday and Friday.

Nasa's standard three-day launch countdown is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. on Sunday.

The agency hopes to fly two space station assembly missions this year to jump-start a 16-flight schedule that must be finished by 2010 when the shuttle fleet is retired.

The shuttles are the only space vehicles designed to carry the station structural trusses, laboratories and power modules into orbit.

Atlantis' flight is the first devoted to station construction since the deadly 2003 Columbia accident. It carries a $372 million truss segment which holds a pair of power-producing solar arrays and a rotary joint so the panels can track the sun.

The mission is scheduled to last 11 days.

- REUTERS