By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will try again Friday to bring Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams home from a 194-day record space odyssey after bad weather prevented the planned landing of space shuttle Atlantis Thursday.
The shuttle, with Williams and six other astronauts, bringing her back from the International Space Station (ISS) had two opportunities to land Thursday but gave up on landing at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida due to thunderstorms.
The shuttle cannot land in rain because it could damage the thousands of ceramic tiles that protect its belly from the fiery heat of re-entry but it has enough fuel and supplies to stay in space until Sunday.
The first opportunity for landing at Florida at 2.16 p.m. Friday (11.46 p.m. IST) calls for a de orbit burn to begin at 1.14 p.m. (10.44 pm IST). The second calls for the de orbit burn to begin at 2.50 p.m. (12.20 a.m. IST Saturday) and landing an hour later.
If Florida's bad weather persists, Atlantis could land at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles.
After Thursday's wave-off, Atlantis commander Frederick Sturckow fine-tuned the shuttle's orbit with a brief engine burn to position it for an extra landing opportunity Friday at the backup runway at Edwards in California.
For the first attempt at Edwards, the de orbit burn would occur at 4.19 p.m. (1.49 a.m. IST Saturday) and landing at 5.21 p.m. (2.51 a.m. IST). The final opportunity is one orbit later with the de orbit burn at 5.55 p.m. (3.25 a.m. IST) and the landing at 6.56 p.m. (4.26 a.m. IST).
If Atlantis had landed at Florida Thursday, Williams would have logged 193 days, 16 hours and 8 minutes. She has not only set an endurance record for the longest space flight by a woman during her very first space journey, but with four excursions spread over 29 hours and 17 minutes, also broke one for most space walks by a woman.
The Atlantis space shuttle blasted off June 8 to fetch Williams and install new solar power panels aboard the ISS.
Meanwhile, during a live interview with American television channels Wednesday, Williams said she thinks about going to the moon. "Absolutely. We are thinking about how we are actually going to be able to get the space station there and may be able to live there," she said, "Absolutely, that is what we have at the back of our minds."
All of the astronauts on board Atlantis "have probably seen the Apollo guys up in the moon", she said alluding to America's human space flight programme.
Asked what her dream mission would be, Williams said she could not imagine anything better than what she has just come up with. "I cannot hope for anything better. I am fortunate."
Sunita's husband has gone to Florida to welcome her, while her mother Bonnie Pandya and sister Dina are in Houston. Sunita is expected to come to Houston a few days later for rehabilitation, or rehab as NASA calls it, to adapt once again to Earth's pull after going without a tug of gravity for over six months.
Apart from her family, Sunita is missing her beloved dog Gorby, a little Jack Russell Terrier named after former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. "I think he will be up there in the Massachusetts (at her parents') home. He should be back in Texas by the weekend. So I think I should be able to take him for a walk on the beach by Sunday morning," she said.