Return of Shuttle Atlantis Delayed
 

Reuters:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Tuesday delayed shuttle Atlantis' homecoming by a day due to bad weather expected at the Florida landing site and because it wanted time to examine video of an object seen falling out of the craft.

NASA rescheduled touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center for 6:22 a.m. EDT (1022 GMT) on Thursday.

"Based on this weather we're having, we're going to waive off tomorrow," astronaut Terry Virts from Mission Control in Houston told Atlantis commander Brent Jett.


NASA also had concerns about a video taken by a shuttle camera of an unidentified small dark object that appeared to fly out of the craft's payload bay on Tuesday.

Johnson Space Center spokesman Doug Peterson said the object was a mystery.

"At this point, we're not willing to hazard a guess," Peterson said.

Flight controllers told the crew to postpone locking down the shuttle's robot arm and stowing the television antenna in case additional inspections were needed.

Atlantis is returning from a week-long stay at the International Space Station to install the first new upgrade since before the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster

CNN is reporting a SECOND piece of debris has been seen floating away from the Shuttle, crew and Nasa now investigating. Hopefully everything will be fine, but I have to admit it's a bit worrying when bits start drifting off a complicated piece of machinery well out in the middle of nowhere. :sad:

Looking on all of these recent occasions with some parts departing from the shuttles at different stages I suspect it was always the case, every flight, for many years. The only difference is no one was closely looking for it and no one paid too much attention to these things before 2003 disaster.

Nigerian stowaways? Didn't know the payload bay was not pressurised???

Did the Shuttle crew pass through the current airport security for aircrew or did someone sneak on a bottle of Vimto/Ribena?