Atlantis

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- For the second time in 10 days, shuttle Atlantis' six astronauts flew into the Kennedy Space Center yesterday to prepare for a scheduled launch this week. The countdown toward Wednesday's planned 12:28 p.m. liftoff is set to begin at 8 a.m. this morning. Forecasters are predicting typical summer weather at Cape Canaveral on launch day: high temperatures in the upper 80s with partly cloudy skies and a 40 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms. Nature has been uncooperative with NASA's attempts to launch the shuttle on an important 11-day construction mission to the International Space Station.

FRIDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS M. bask. Old Spice Classic, 1st Semi.: TBA ESPNNoon Rider@James Madison CSNP, TCN2 Battle 4 Atlantis, First Semi.: TBA VS.2 76 Classic, First Semi.: Teams TBA ESPN2:30 Battle 4 Atlantis, 2nd Semi.: TBA VS.4:30 NIT Season Tip-Off, Final: Teams TBA ESPN5 Valparaiso@Ohio State...

The five space travelers - including three Baltimore natives - who delivered the U.S. science lab Destiny to the International Space Station last month will be greeted today at the Maryland Science Center with a public program at 12:30 p.m. and a reception from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Kenwood High graduate Thomas D. Jones, Woodlawn High alumnus Robert L. Curbeam Jr., Baltimore-born Marsha Ivins and their commander, Ken Cockrell, and pilot, Mark Polansky, will...

Astronomers around the world got their first close-up look at the Hubble Space Telescope in seven years Wednesday as astronauts aboard the shuttle Atlantis closed in and captured the orbiting observatory for its final round of repairs and upgrades. "When we first had images of the Hubble Space Telescope, there were audible gasps of elation. This was truly a wonderful sight after seven years," said Jon Morse, NASA's director of astrophysics. Mission specialist Megan McArthur grabbed the 12-ton telescope with the shuttle's robot arm at 1:14 p.m. while orbiting 350 miles above western Australia.

Not to be confused with the Atlantic in Canton, the new Atlantis has opened in Columbia at 5485 Harper's Farm Road. The specialty is seafood, as you might guess from the name. The menu stays the same at lunch and dinner. Signature dishes include oysters Atlantis (oysters stuffed with shrimp, crab and spinach, then topped with bearnaise sauce), crab cakes and lobster Thermidor. Entrees are priced from $10 to $28. Owner Robert Alipanah, who worked at Mo's seafood restaurants before this, says he's so pleased with how business is going that he's putting a piano bar in soon.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA will get one more chance this morning to launch space shuttle Atlantis before the mission is delayed for at least three weeks. The latest in a series of launch scrubs happened yesterday because of a faulty sensor in the shuttle's external fuel tank. The problem occurred as the tank was being fueled. NASA will make another launch attempt at 11:14 a.m. today using guidelines developed when the same issue cropped up during a 2005 launch. The decision to scrub came after a lengthy debate among mission managers.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Assigned to rescue the still-under-construction International Space Station, seven astronauts orbiting Earth aboard shuttle Atlantis whisked ever closer last night to a rendezvous with their quarry. Capping a perfect countdown, Atlantis blasted into space at 6:11 a.m. yesterday from the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle and its tower of smoke catching the rose-colored rays of dawn. At that moment, the space station was passing over Turkey, northeast of Ankara near the Black Sea. Eight minutes later, the crew achieved orbit and Atlantis began a 42-hour chase of the space station, which is slowly falling back to Earth.

In the latest Disney cartoon feature, "Atlantis," the moviemakers imbue the unveiling of the 1914 submarine Ulysses with the same shiver-inducing awe that Disney's live-action craftsmen conveyed when they unleashed the Nautilus 47 years ago in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Working with computer and hand-drawn animation, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (who made their debut as directors with the superb "Beauty and the Beast") bring this high adventure at low depths enough flair and conviction to keep the movie buoyant even when its plot is abrupt and its emotionality conventional.

The picture on Adam Riess' computer monitor arrived fresh from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. It was the fading light from an exploding star, potentially a key piece of evidence in his yearslong investigation of one of the greatest of all cosmological mysteries - dark energy. But as the Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist waited for the next image to arrive, an e-mail message popped onto his screen. In an instant, he tumbled into what he describes as one of those "uh-oh" moments when everything changes.

HOUSTON -- As Atlantis' astronauts sailed past the halfway point of their visit to Russia's space station yesterday, ground control teams considered a request from Mir's cosmonauts to dispose of potentially contaminated water and other refuse that have accumulated aboard the 11-year-old outpost.The surprise request was perhaps one of the least glamorous examples of how the Russians, with their orbital space station, and the United States, with its space shuttle, are learning to work together.

The picture on Adam Riess' computer monitor arrived fresh from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. It was the fading light from an exploding star, potentially a key piece of evidence in his yearslong investigation of one of the greatest of all cosmological mysteries - dark energy. But as the Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist waited for the next image to arrive, an e-mail message popped onto his screen. In an instant, he tumbled into what he describes as one of those "uh-oh" moments when everything changes.

Seven astronauts are stranded in orbit after their shuttle is damaged during launch. Unable to repair the ship, they hunker down with dwindling supplies while four more astronauts board a second spacecraft and blast off on a daring rescue mission. NASA executives would like to keep this scenario in the realm of science fiction. But they're preparing for it just the same on the slim chance the shuttle Atlantis is crippled during the May 11 repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. A second shuttle - Endeavour - is poised for liftoff from Cape Canaveral if there's a call for help from Atlantis.

Space cadets! The forecast tonight is promising for a fine view of the International Space Station, the shuttle Atlantis and a combined crew of 10 as they fly from high over Lake Michigan to the Outer Banks. The new Columbus module and Atlantis should make it brighter than ever. The space station rises like a bright star in the northwest at 6:37 p.m., climbing high in the southwestern sky by 6:40 p.m. It grazes bright star Rigel at Orion's foot and disappears in the southeast at 6:42 p.m.

Bidding farewell to a legend At Franklin High School, Jill Myers has been there so long it seems she's part of the building itself. But after 39 years as a teacher, coach and athletic director, she is retiring. Sports baltimoresun.com/kent Just blame Ehrlich Laura Vozzella looks at the back-and-forth with Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Republicans over the prospect of higher fees by the MVA. Metro baltimoresun.com/vozzella OTHER VOICES Jean Marbella on Mitchell's planMaryland Rick Maese on the LPGA tournamentSports Chris Kaltenbach on filmsMovies Today Ray Frager on O's media numbersSports 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY LakeFest -- The kickoff event of the 20th Columbia Festival of the Arts takes place today through Sunday at the Columbia lakefront.

CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA has delayed space shuttle Atlantis' planned March 15 launch until at least late April to fix hail damage to the ship's external fuel tank. A ferocious thunderstorm packing 62-mph gusts pelted Launch Pad 39A with golf-ball-size hailstones Monday, carving an estimated 7,000 divots in the foam insulation that covers the giant tank. Engineers must repair hundreds of the worst gouges and minor damage to about 27 heat-resistant tiles on Atlantis' left wing before the shuttle is allowed to fly. "This constitutes, in our evaluation, the worst damage that we have ever seen from hail on the external-tank foam," said Wayne Hale, NASA's space shuttle program manager.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA will spend the next month considering a possible service call to the Hubble Space Telescope after shuttle Atlantis safely glided home yesterday through starry pre-dawn skies. The shuttle's six astronauts ended a four-year hiatus in the construction of the International Space Station by installing a new set of solar arrays that eventually will double the outpost's power supply. But Atlantis' flight could have an equally important impact on future shuttle operations beginning with the next scheduled launch to the station in December.

The space shuttle Columbia was not the first to have superheated gas invade its left wing on re-entering Earth's atmosphere, according to documents released yesterday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In 2000, the documents show, the shuttle Atlantis went into orbit with a quarter-inch breach in the wing's leading edge, allowing blowtorch-hot plasma into the wing on re-entry. But unlike the accident that destroyed Columbia on Feb. 1 and killed its crew of seven, the incident resulted in only minor damage, leaving the wing's inner structure intact.

It was Walt Disney Pictures, with "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin," that ignited the feature animation revival roughly a decade ago. But since 1994's "The Lion King," the Disney cartoons winning the greatest accolades have been boutique productions with limited studio involvement: the "Toy Story" movies and "A Bug's Life" from John Lasseter and his computer animation team at Pixar. The most acclaimed cartoons of recent years -- Brad Bird's "The Iron Giant," the Aardman animators' "Chicken Run" and "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" -- have come from outside Disney.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Atlantis is heading home this morning after a late inspection of the ship's heat shielding yesterday found nothing wrong. The inspection was prompted by Tuesday's sighting of an unknown object that apparently shook loose from Atlantis during prelanding checkouts of the shuttle's body flaps and steering thrusters. Eight hours of surveys using cameras on Atlantis' robot arm and a sensor-laden 50-foot boom did not detect any sign the object was dislodged from the ship's critical heat armor.

How many astronauts does it take to unscrew a bolt? "Apparently, it takes three. Two outside and one inside," Pam Melroy, of mission control at Johnson Space Center in Houston, said yesterday. Melroy's jest was at the expense of astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis, who were trying without much success to continue installing a new set of solar arrays during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. After grunting and groaning in their bulky spacesuits, Steve MacLean and Dan Burbank, with astronaut Joe Tanner advising from inside the space station, had to return to a toolbox for a new wrench to pry loose the recalcitrant bolt.