WEBVTT

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From Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this is Shuttle Launch Control at T-3 hours and holding.

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We are now in the final six hours of the countdown for the launch of Atlantis on mission STS-115,

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the first mission since Return to Flight to resume construction of the International Space Station.

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The countdown is being controlled from Firing Room 4 in the Launch Control Center and we are

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currently on schedule for a liftoff at 11:40 a.m. Eastern time this morning.

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STS-115 is planned to last approximately 10 days, 19 hours and 30 minutes,

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with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 7:10 a.m.

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This is the 116th launch of the Space Shuttle Program, the 27th launch of

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Space Shuttle Atlantis and the 19th flight to the International Space Station.

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There are six astronauts aboard Atlantis who will shortly be en route to the space station on the first day of this 11-day mission.

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Aboard will be the P3/P4 truss segment, the, and the second set of solar arrays and batteries to provide power to the station.

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The integrated truss in the payload bay is over 45 feet long and weighs nearly 35,000 pounds. The astronauts, a six-member crew,

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consist of Mission Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Chris Ferguson, Mission Specialists Joe Tanner,

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Dan Burbank, Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve MacLean from the Canadian Space Agency.

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This morning, our tanking operations began at 2:49 a.m. and the fuel cell that we've been watching

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carefully over the last couple of days as part of our engineering evaluation is working just fine this morning so far.

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We are working a problem with a low-level eco-sensor, hydrogen eco-sensor, cut-off sensor that,

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on the hydrogen side of the tank that has failed wet. And at this point,

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we're continuing our countdown operations as per plan while this is under discussion.

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It will get more discussion by the mission management team later on this morning. There are a couple of options.

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One is, depending on how the engineering analysis turns out and the discussion of the mission management team,

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we may pick the option of choosing to launch with three eco-sensors instead of the four.

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Or the other option is to detank, come back tomorrow and, when we retank, see what that sensor does the next time around.

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So that will be a developing story during the morning, but nothing at this point that is going to

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constrain any of the activities as far as tanking and inspections at the pad,

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or the crew activities that will be coming up in terms of getting it ready to go to the pad and boarding Atlantis.

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We have two hours, 11 minutes, 11 seconds remaining in this built-in hold. At T-3 hours and holding, this is Shuttle Launch Control.

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