NASA STS-129 Launch

After nearly two years, orbiter Atlantis is set to make her return to the International Space Station (ISS) in November following her extremely successful flagship mission (STS-125) to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. However, meetings have been taking place on Wednesday to discuss the target launch date due to a number of constraints.

STS-129 Evaluations:

As part of this return to ISS construction/maintenance duty, Atlantis has been undergoing pre-mission processing for STS-129 in Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center ever since her return to the Florida spaceport on June 2 following STS-125’s landing in California in late-May.

As of this week, engineers and technicians in OPF-1 – under the direction of veteran orbiter flow director Angie Brewer – are nearing the completion of their processing efforts on Atlantis.