Space shuttle Atlantis by kristina leskova

Cape Canaveral in Florida is a place where another space shuttle started on Monday 16th of November. This one was named Atlantis, includes six people as a crew and is planned to come back after eleven days. That means that this crew will spent their Thanksgiving Day in the space. After a successful start the space shuttle circles now in the space with the aim to connect with International Space Station. This aim should be reached on Wednesday. Until this day astronauts have to check whether their space shuttle is not damaged. Mostly they will check the thermal shielding of their shuttle. Because nobody wants to repeat the disaster of space shuttle Columbia which happened si! x years ago. What happened there? Space shuttle Columbia was returning on the Earth but did not land successfully. During the start of this space shuttle it was little bit damaged, but nobody thought that this small damage could cause such a disaster. All seven members of Columbia died. Shortly after the start a small piece of thermal insulation foam broke off the External Tank. If this damage would be repaired the crew could come back. But unfortunately this did not happen. Nowadays there are strict security rules because everybody wants that astronauts will come back. The NASA officials watched the launch images and they said there is nothing to be worry about. Anyway the crew will check their space shuttle and inform about it. Atlantis is delivering big spare components to the space station. The space program is planned to be finished by the end of the next year and there will be only few other flights. After that this program will be definitely finished.

rela! ted story (sgx15923): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_space_shuttle;_ylt=ApVf.heCrWN...

by kristina leskova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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