STS-75 Mission Control Center 
Status Report # 29

Friday, February 8, 1996, 9 a.m.

Shuttle managers today elected to wait for better weather in Florida
on Saturday due to unpredictable cloud cover this morning at Kennedy
Space Center.  The weather forecast indicates improved conditions
Saturday.

Today's landing opportunities slipped by one by one as the flight
control team saw some improvement in cloud cover at the KSC landing
site, only to be faced with a prediction of bands of low clouds moving
over the runway area at the scheduled landing time.  Weather was
generally good at Edwards Air Force Base, the alternate site, but with
some hope of better weather in Florida Saturday, managers decided to
keep Columbia in orbit one additional day.

Early Friday, Columbia's astronauts prepared the vehicle for entry,
packing up gear aboard the shuttle and closing the payload bay doors.
They will now reopen the doors to provide necessary cooling and go
through the deorbit preparations again Saturday morning.

The first opportunity Saturday for a KSC landing comes on orbit 250
with a deorbit burn at 5:23 a.m. CST and a landing at 6:24 a.m. CST.
The second KSC opportunity is at 7:59 a.m. CST and the final
opportunity in Florida comes at 9:35 a.m.

Edwards landing opportunities Saturday morning are at 7:51, 9:26 and
11:01 CST.

The JSC newsroom will close Friday at 5 p.m. and reopen Saturday at
4:30 a.m.