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Shuttle landing postponed until Monday
Bad weather in Florida forces 1-day delay
October 5, 1997
Web posted at: 8:50 p.m. EDT (0050 GMT)CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) -- NASA was forced to delay for a day the homecoming of space shuttle Atlantis after bad weather descended on Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The shuttle, with its crew of seven, had been scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday evening, bringing back astronaut Michael Foale after his 4 1/2-month stint as a member of the crew of the Russian space station Mir.
But Foale's return and reunion with his family will have to wait a day, thanks to low clouds, wind and rain. The shuttle is now scheduled to land at 5:55 p.m. Monday EDT (2155 GMT).
The shuttle is returning to Earth after a successful six-day visit to Mir.
In anticipation of his homecoming, Foale had placed an order for the kind of food he was forced to do without for so long: Italian cuisine. He reportedly ordered lasagna and pizza, to be washed down by some cold beer, crowned by a dessert with "a lot of chocolate."
Foale's mission, now extended to 145 days, marks the second-longest American stay in space. Only Shannon Lucid has stayed longer.
NASA officials have praised the British-born astrophysicist for keeping his cool when an unmanned cargo vessel collided with Mir in June, puncturing one of the space station's modules. Foale and his Russian crew mates also had to cope with a series of equipment failures and computer breakdowns.
These problems led NASA to reconsider its commitment to the Mir program, but eventually the U.S. space agency decided to go ahead with its plans and replace Foale with astronaut David Wolf, who is now aboard the Russian space station.
On Sunday, Russia launched an unmanned cargo spacecraft to Mir, carrying a spare computer and regular supplies. It blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1508 GMT (11:08 a.m. EDT) and was due to dock automatically with Mir at 1642 GMT (12:42 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Shuttle Atlantis to touch down Sunday evening - October 5, 1997
- Shuttle undocks from Mir for trip home - October 3, 1997
- Shuttle crew unloads space supplies for Mir - September 28, 1997
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