Space Shuttle Launch Set for Monday

After all sorts of space shuttle trouble and an astronaut’s sprained ankle, the countdown began Friday for Atlantis’ scheduled launch Monday to the international space station.

Atlantis is scheduled to haul fresh batteries and other replacement parts for the 18-month-old space station, which already needs repairs.

The station also needs a lift; it’s losing one to two miles in altitude each week because of increased solar activity. Once docked, Atlantis will raise the station by as much as 19 miles.

Atlantis is making its debut after an extensive tune-up and a slew of unexpected repairs. The shuttle last flew in 1997, to the Russian space station Mir.

NASA had to fix defective electrical wiring, and the craft’s wing flaps were accidentally damaged by workers last fall. Last month, technicians banged the shuttle’s main antenna into a work platform then had to replace an engine because of suspect seals.

NASA delayed the mission one week after commander James Halsell Jr. sprained an ankle. Then the unit that controls Atlantis’ rudder had to be replaced, a job never performed before at the launch pad.

“We are incredibly happy to be here,” Halsell said upon arriving at the Kennedy Space Center with his crew. “We know that processing Atlantis this time around has been an even greater challenge than normal . . . , but the reports that we’ve received are fantastic.”

The Atlantis mission was originally designed to supply the international space station before the first expeditionary crew took up residence.

But the U.S. space agency went back to the drawing board when it became clear that the launch of the Russian Zvezda service module, similar to the core unit of Russia’s Mir space station, was going to slip more than two years behind schedule and the station would not be ready to begin operations.

When the mission was replanned, three crew members were pulled from duty and reassigned to a new mission planned for August, to follow Zvezda’s launch.

To take their place, NASA sent to Moscow for astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. The three had been designated the space station’s Expedition 2 crew and were training for a mission set for next year.

They joined Halsell, pilot Scott Horowitz and mission specialists Mary Ellen Weber and Jeffery Williams.

The $60-billion space station is a joint venture involving the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada to create a research outpost.

When completed, the station will have more pressurized living space than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet and will be clearly visible in the evening sky. An ambitious schedule, involving dozens of missions, sets completion at four years.