Rain May Spoil Debut of Shuttle Atlantis Today
Weather could spoil the debut of the space shuttle Atlantis today because of a 50% chance of rain over the central Florida coast at launch time, officials said Wednesday.
An unseen clock counted down the hours Wednesday to liftoff of Atlantis on its secret mission to launch two nuclear-hardened military communications satellites.
Liftoff time, like the mission’s objectives, was kept secret. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration would say only that Atlantis’ first flight would begin between 7:20 and 10:20 a.m. PDT today.
Officials at Kennedy Space Center said that only a nine-minute warning would be issued before launch to make it more difficult for Soviet satellites and spy ships offshore to monitor the shuttle.
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