The Next Shuttle Launch

From Tariq Malik's always-handy Space and Astronomy blog on LiveScience.com comes the news that NASA will launch STS-117, the next mission for the shuttle Atlantis, on March 15. This is a major ISS construction mission, carrying the Starboard 3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) segment with two new solar arrays. The payload weighs about 16 metric tons. Three spacewalks will be needed to install the new hardware and fold up an old solar array.