| CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. - NASA said Monday it was prepared to make attempts three days in a row this week to launch the shuttle Atlantis.
The unusually intense pace is an attempt to avoid another long delay for the first assembly mission to the international space station in nearly four years.
Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on an 11-day mission from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday at 11:29 a.m. CDT.
Backup attempts were possible Thursday and Friday. Then, NASA would wait for the Russians to launch a new resident crew to the space station on Sept. 18 before making future attempts.
Favorable weather, something the space agency did not have when it prepared an Aug. 27 launch attempt, is forecast Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Normally, NASA would be prepared to make launch attempts two days in a row then take a 24-hour break to avoid fatiguing the launch and flight control teams. But Friday's deadline had shuttle managers prepared to make it three in a row if necessary.
"The team is really excited to try to do this. To a man and to a woman there was no disagreement at all about trying three in a row," NASA launch director Mike Leinbach said. "We want to put the vehicle in orbit, and I feel like we have a pretty good shot at it."
NASA found three launch attempts necessary only once before in the shuttle program's 25-year history — a May 2000 fllight to the space station.
Wednesday's forecast included an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions. The outlook for Thursday and Friday was 70 percent favorable, with a slight chance of thunderstorms, said Kathy Winters, the shuttle launch weather officer.
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