NASA’s next space shuttle crew is now slated to launch one day early, on March 15, to deliver a new set of solar arrays to the International Space Station (ISS) during an 11-day mission. A March 15 launch lift off would occur at about 6:43 a.m. EDT (1043 GMT).

James Hartsfield, a NASA spokesperson at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during today’s daily ISS commentary that shuttle program managers have opted for a one-day launch advance of the STS-117 mission aboard the Atlantis orbiter. However, the new launch target will not be official until shuttle managers convene a traditional Flight Readiness Review meeting that precedes every shuttle launch, Hartsfield added.

Atlantis’ STS-117 crew, commanded by veteran shuttle astronaut Rick Sturckow, is hauling up the 17.5-ton Starboard 3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) segment to the ISS.

The truss segment will not only serve as a new addition to the space station’s backbone-like main truss, but also contains two new solar array arrays that will be unfurled while the Atlantis astronauts are docked at the ISS [image]. The astronauts plan to stage three spacewalks to install the new truss, deploy the solar arrays and retract an older solar wing extending to starboard from the station’s mast-like Port 6 truss [image].

NASA’s STS-117 mission has a launch window that stretches from March 15 through around March 29, after which Atlantis’ crew must wait until after the planned April 9 launch a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Expedition 15 crewmembers and U.S. entrepreneur Charles Simonyi, the next space tourist to the ISS.