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Weather Forecast Is 60 Percent 'No Go' For Shuttle

POSTED: Wednesday, June 28, 2006

UPDATED: 2:13 pm EDT June 28, 2006

CAPE CANAVERAL -- The first official forecast for Saturday's shuttle launch attempt is not good.

There is a 60 percent chance of weather conditions that will prohibit the launch on Saturday, and Sunday and Monday, Local 6 News partner Florida Today reported.

The forecast from the 45th Weather Squadron at Patrick Air Force Base says Cape Canaveral can expect the weather it has been having the past few days to continue through the holiday weekend.

Countdown Continues

Meanwhile, a three-day countdown to the planned launch of shuttle Discovery will begin at Kennedy Space Center Wednesday while seven astronauts take part in final training for NASA's second post-Columbia test flight, the report said.

With the 18-story shuttle standing at launch pad 39B, mission commander Steve Lindsey and pilot Mark Kelly will practice landings five miles away at NASA's shuttle runway.

The dive-bombing training runs will be done in a Gulfstream 2 aircraft modified to mimic the shuttle's steep descent during final approach -- seven times that of a commercial airliner, Florida Today reported.

Mission specialists Mike Fossum, Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellers will be at the pad, training to take pictures of the shuttle's redesigned external tank once it is jettisoned from the orbiter nine minutes into flight.

Scrambling to unbuckle from their seats, Fossum and Wilson will float up to overhead cockpit windows, rolling video and snapping still images as the 15-story fuel reservoir begins a destructive plunge back through the atmosphere, according to the report.

The idea is to document the condition of the tank to help determine whether a potentially fatal foam-shedding problem finally is under control.

All seven crewmates -- including mission specialists Lisa Nowak and Thomas Reiter -- will check the fit of the pumpkin-orange partial pressure suits that they'll wear during launch and atmospheric re-entry.

Liftoff is scheduled for 3:49 p.m. Saturday.

Cheney To Attend

Also, Vice President Dick Cheney will attend the planned Saturday launch of shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center.

Cheney and his wife, Lynne, then intend to head up to Daytona Beach to watch the 48th annual Pepsi 400 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race.

"It's a terrific way to spend the Independence Day weekend," said Jennifer Mayfield, a spokeswoman for the vice president, told Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

Cheney was instrumental in developing President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, which calls for NASA to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 in preparation for future missions to Mars, the report said.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

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