Space shuttle heads home ahead of satellite shot
By Jeff Franks
HOUSTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Space shuttle Atlantis headed for home on Wednesday with NASA pushing to get it back to Earth before the U.S. military tries to shoot a dead spy satellite out of the sky.
The shuttle, which launched on Feb. 7, was scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:07 a.m. EST (1407 GMT) on Wednesday, but could go to Edwards Air Force Base in California if the weather turns bad.
NASA usually prefers not to consider an Edwards landing on the first possible return day, but wants the shuttle back on terra firma somewhere before the satellite shot.
The military has said it will fire a ship-based missile at the satellite, which died shortly after a 2006 launch, because it is carrying toxic rocket fuel and is expected to fall to Earth in early March.
The shot could come as early as Wednesday night.
The satellite is lower than the space station, which orbits 200 miles (320 km) above Earth, and therefore said not to be a danger to it.
NASA flight director Bryan Lunney told reporters on Tuesday the U.S. space agency had received "no pressure" from the military to get Atlantis down.
"We're not going to alter any of our (safety) rules," he said. "If the weather is good on Wednesday, then we're going to land on Wednesday. If not, then I'll push it to Thursday."
Forecasters predicted good weather for Kennedy at the scheduled landing time, he said.
The planned satellite shot took some of the limelight away from the shuttle's 13-day mission in which it finally ferried the European laboratory Columbus to the International Space Station.
The delivery of the $1.9 billion lab was years behind schedule because of problems including the 2003 destruction of shuttle Columbia, but its installation prompted cheers from jubilant European Space Agency officials.
They said the only disappointment was that German astronaut Hans Schlegel did not get to participate as planned in the spacewalk to attach Columbus because of an undisclosed illness.
He recovered sufficiently to take part in a subsequent spacewalk and, along with French astronaut Leopole Eyharts, led the work to prepare Columbus for the years of science Europe hopes it produces.
Even as Atlantis readied to come home, NASA on Tuesday rolled shuttle Endeavour to the Kennedy launchpad from which it is scheduled for a March 11 launch.
Endeavour will carry the first of Japan's three-part Kibo space lab to the station.
NASA said the space station is now 57 percent complete. The agency is trying to finish the outpost before the aging shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
