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| The Vehicle Assembly Bilding with temptingly open door as we awaited the appearance of the Atlantis. Soon after it was announced that STS 132 would not be rolled out to the pad that evening. |
The next scheduled event was the rollout of the STS 132 stack from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad 39A. This was originally planned for 8 pm, but later revised forward to 6 pm, with a briefing by Atlantis Flow Director Angie Brewer to follow at 8:30 pm.
As was my usual practice, I got back to the KSC Press Site well before, in late afternoon.
There were no special arrangements for general media, and we were given explicit instructions that we were not to approach closer than the edge of the News Center's car park. This riled many of the photographers, especially as hundred of cars were streaming past us to a VIP viewing stand adjacent to the crawlerway. For myself, I was just glad I was even there. Sure, it would have been nice to get closer, but at least from the car park I would be able to get the whole of Atlantis and its external tank in one photographic frame.
The doors to the Vehicle Assembly Building were raised and a tantalising part of the grey crawler transporter could be seen from our disadvantaged view point.
The promised rollout time came and went, with still no signs of motion. Expectant minutes stretched out into tedious hours as the weather near Cape Canaveral deteriorated. Eventually, at 9:15 pm, we heard a distant tannoy from the area of the VIP seating. Immediately a stream of cars began flowing out past us. Obviously the rollout had been postponed, and a visit to the News Centre confirmed this.
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Text, images and audio Copyright to Andrew Rennnie, 2010