Space Shuttle Processing Status 8 Apr 2002

MISSION: STS-110 – 13th ISS Flight (8A) – ITS S0 TRUSS AND MOBILE TRANSPORTER

VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104

KSC LAUNCH DATE: Monday, April 8, 2002

LAUNCH TIME: 4:44:19 p.m.

KSC LANDING DATE: April 19 at 12:46 p.m.

MISSION DURATION: 11 days

CREW: Bloomfield, Frick, Ross, Smith, Ochoa, Morin, Walheim

ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6 degrees

Shuttle Processing Note: Shuttle Atlantis was successfully launched today at 4:44:19 p.m. carrying the seven STS-110 crewmembers on their 11-day construction mission to the International Space Station. Atlantis roared into a clear Florida sky with 11 seconds to spare in the launch window after data dropouts in a backup processing system were encountered in the last minutes of what had been a flawless countdown. At about the 6-minute, 30-second mark in the count, dropouts of radio frequency data occurred in the standby unit for the Launch Processing System (LPS). A hold was called at T-5 minutes, and the LPS team in the Launch Control Center reacted by successfully re-loading the data, allowing the countdown to proceed. Atlantis performed smoothly during the 8-minutes and 30 seconds of powered flight, and all systems on-board are operating normally.

Retrieval Ships Liberty Star and Freedom Star are in the process of completing their recovery operations of the Solid Rocket Boosters that burned out two minutes into the flight and splashed down in the Atlantic impact area. The ships are due to return to their berths at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday afternoon.