Atlantis now heads for California base

The first landing opportunity at Edwards Air Force Base is slated to be 1:19 am IST on Saturday.

NASA managers decided to skip an earlier chance to land in Florida because of showers that were within 55 kms of the landing strip and clouds below 8,000 feet, both violations of flight rules.

Aboard Atlantis, the seven astronauts including Indian-American Sunita Williams, prepared for their return, putting on their orange spacesuits and closed the shuttle8217;s payload bay doors, which are kept opened during flights to keep heat from building up.

They have three chances to land at Edwards, the last at 5:39 am IST on Saturday.

NASA prefers to use Kennedy, where it is easier and far cheaper to get Atlantis to its hangar to be prepared for its next mission in December. If Atlantis lands in California, it would cost 1.7 million and take up to 10 days to get the shuttle home to Florida aboard a jumbo jet.

Atlantis has enough power for its systems to orbit until Sunday, but managers don8217;t want to wait that long.

The flight will be extended to Sunday only if technical problems needed to be fixed.

During the crew8217;s 14-day mission to the International Space Station, astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays and activated a joint that allows new solar arrays to track the sun.

Originally scheduled for 11 days, the mission was extended by two days to give astronauts time to repair a thermal blanket that had peeled away during the June 8 launch.