Saturday shuttle landing scrubbed

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- Space shuttle Atlantis and its astronauts will spend yet another day in orbit.

NASA called off all landing attempts for Saturday because of thunderstorms in Florida. Mission Control told the seven astronauts that the weather was not cooperating at the main touchdown site at Kennedy Space Center, but that it was looking up for Sunday. So Mission Control decided to keep the astronauts in orbit a 13th day rather than head to the backup landing site in California.

That was further than the astronauts got Friday, when storms directly over the Florida landing site kept them in orbit.

Altman and his six crewmates are trying to wind up their Hubble repair mission, which began 12 days ago. It was NASA's last visit to the 19-year-old observatory. The $1 billion overhaul should keep the telescope working for another five to 10 years.

Atlantis has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Monday.

The mission culminated earlier this week with the release of Hubble, freshly restored and considered at its scientific peak thanks to the astronauts' effort. In five back-to-back spacewalks, they gave the observatory new science instruments and fixed two others, and replaced batteries, gyroscopes and other aging parts.

This was the fifth and final visit to Hubble by astronauts. With NASA's three remaining space shuttles slated for retirement next year, there will be no way to stage another repair mission at the space telescope. It will be steered into the Pacific sometime in the early 2020s; a docking ring was installed by Atlantis' astronauts just for that purpose.