Bad weather threatens shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA began fueling shuttle Atlantis for liftoff today, even though bad weather threatened to delay the mission to add another science lab to the international space station.

Forecasters said there was a 70 percent chance that rain, clouds and possibly even a severe thunderstorm would keep Atlantis on the pad for yet another day. The space shuttle already is two months late in delivering the European lab, Columbus, to the space station.

Faulty fuel gauges grounded Atlantis in December. Engineers worked round the clock and through the holidays to fix the problem, which turned out to be a bad connector in the external fuel tank.

Although confident of the repair, NASA officials monitored Atlantis' fuel gauges with more interest than usual, once liquid hydrogen started flowing into the tank well before dawn.

NASA said at least three of the four fuel gauges must work properly once Atlantis' tank is filled, in order for the launch to proceed. The gauges are part of a critical safety system to help ensure that the main engines do not run on an unexpectedly empty tank during the 8 1/2-minute climb to orbit. They have performed erratically during countdowns for nearly three years and postponed several launches.

Columbus - a $2 billion high-tech laboratory - is the European Space Agency's primary contribution to the space station. In the making for 23 years, the lab has endured station redesigns and slowdowns, as well as a number of shuttle postponements and two shuttle accidents.

It will join the U.S. lab, Destiny, already flying for seven years. The much bigger Japanese lab Kibo, or Hope, will require three shuttle flights to get off the ground, beginning in March.

The Europeans also are on the verge of launching their new cargo ship, Jules Verne. It's scheduled to blast off from French Guiana in early March.

"There's going to be a lot of pride, a lot of people with good feelings in their stomachs, when these things go up," said Europe's space station program manager, Alan Thirkettle.

The European Space Agency already has spent more than $7 billion on the station program and plans to invest another $6 billion by 2015, Thirkettle said.

Besides Columbus, Atlantis will drop off a new space station resident, a French Air Force general who will take the place of NASA astronaut Daniel Tani and get Columbus working. Tani will return to Earth aboard the shuttle, ending a mission of nearly four months.

NASA is anxious to get Atlantis flying as soon as possible to keep alive its plan for six shuttle missions this year. The space agency faces a 2010 deadline for finishing the station and retiring the shuttles.