News / Science & Technology
NASA Ensures Shuttle Landing Will Be Successful
The eminent danger of Hurricane Dean disrupting the landing of Space Shuttle Endeavor are diminishing. Mission managers were worried that they would be forced to evacuate NASA's Mission Control in Houston and be forced to divert the landing to Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The hurricane's pattern still has the chance of being unpredictable, but they are pretty certain that the storm will not affect the landing of the Endeavor anymore. NASA scaled back a Saturday spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) by Endeavor's astronauts and pushed their landing up one day earlier to Tuesday to avoid complications from Hurricane Dean during the shuttle's return to Earth.
By Sunday afternoon, forecasts for the hurricane's path put it well south of NASA's JSC during Endeavor's anticipating landing, with maximum winds blowing at 145 miles per hour (230 kph) as the storm made its way toward the southern Gulf Coast.
NASA will now aim to land Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew at the Kennedy Space Center, with California's Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert serving as a backup runway. The shuttle has enough supplies to stay aloft until Friday, if required.
