TORONTO, Sept. 20, 2006 -- York alumnus Steve MacLean and other crew members of the Space Shuttle Atlantis were given the all-clear on Wednesday to prepare to land the shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first available landing opportunity is 6:21 a.m. on Thursday.   

Full details and updates on the mission and its schedule, as well as NASA TV Webcasts, can be seen at NASA's main shuttle page. 

A direct feed from NASA is being shown in the lobby of the Computer Science & Engineering Building daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the duration of the shuttle mission.

MacLean, a member of the York University Alumni Association board, sent an e-mail to York President & Vice-Chancellor Lorna R. Marsden early in his mission to describe the view from space (see the Sept. 12 issue of YFile). He documented his pre-launch preparations in a diary published in the Aug. 10 and Aug. 16 issues of YFile. This is 51-year-old MacLean’s second flight into space – his first was in 1992 – and the first space walk for the physicist, who earned a BSc and PhD in physics at York as well as an honorary degree.

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For more information, please contact:

Janice Walls
Media Relations Coordinator
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22081
wallsj@yorku.ca