The Nation - News from Nov. 1, 1988

The shuttle Atlantis will be launched on a day in late November on a classified military flight, NASA said, but the exact time will be kept secret until nine minutes before blastoff. The shuttle’s trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, tentatively planned for early Wednesday, is two days behind schedule because over the weekend engineers discovered a 3-inch piece of wire lodged between a washer and a bolt where the ship is attached to the external tank.