Washington: NASA managers has sent the space shuttle Atlantis back toward the Florida launch pad, reversing an order hours earlier to put the spacecraft into a protective hangar ahead of a looming tropical storm, the US space agency announced.
The reevaluation followed a forecast by the US National Hurricane Centre that Tropical Storm Ernesto had weakened and was unlikely to regain hurricane-strength winds over Florida.
Atlantis was about halfway into the slow journey from the launch pad to the nearby hanger, pulled by a huge, plodding tractor device, when the reversal was announced late Tuesday.
NASA now has a chance to get Atlantismission to the International Space Station (ISS) off the ground next week.
Had the shuttle weathered Ernesto in the Kennedy Space Centre Hangar, which is specially hardened against the hurricanes that plague Florida, the mission would have been delayed until October.
Lift-off was initially scheduled for Sunday but was postponed for precautionary inspections after a severe lightning strike.
And the rescheduled launch on Tuesday was too close to Ernesto's expected arrival at Cape Canaveral, site of the space launch centre.
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