Atlantis Passes Early Tanking Test in Preparation for Final Flight
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
By: Nicole Creston

June 15, 2011 | WMFE - NASA began fueling space shuttle Atlantis Wednesday in preparation for the shuttle program's final flight. But it was only a test.

Atlantis isn't scheduled for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center until July 8th. But shuttle managers ordered Wednesday’s fuel fill-up to make sure repairs to the external fuel tank will hold.

Engineers also checked for fuel tank cracks like the ones that kept space shuttle Discovery grounded for four months of repairs. The same patches that exhibited cracks on Discovery were also used on Atlantis.

After a severe thunderstorm delayed the test several hours, technicians pumped a half-million gallons of super-cold fuel into Atlantis' tank. The operation took three hours.

Preliminary checks show nothing was damaged, although a power circuit went offline during the thunderstorm.