Cape Canaveral (Florida): Space shuttle Atlantis got the go-ahead from NASA on Thursday for a June 8 launch to resume construction of the International Space Station, after a three-month delay to repair hailstone damage.
Barring technical problems or weather-related delays, the shuttle is scheduled to lift off at 7:38 pm EDT (2338 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"We're good to go," shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said. "We have no show-stoppers ahead of us," he told a news conference.
NASA had planned to fly its first mission of the year in March, but a hailstorm on February 26 hammered the shuttle, damaging its external fuel tank.
The shuttle was returned to a processing hangar for repairs that stole valuable time from a tight schedule to finish building the space station before shuttles that are required for assembly of the orbital outpost are retired in 2010.
"I'm extremely confident that we have had perfectly good repairs," Hale said.
During the downtime, NASA decided to use Atlantis to ferry a new crewmember to the space station and bring home astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been aboard the outpost since December.
Originally, the crew swap was scheduled to take place during the second flight of the year, which now won't occur until August at the earliest.
Atlantis will carry a new set of power-producing solar wings to the station, which is being expanded to accommodate laboratories built by the European and Japanese space agencies.
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