NASA to try California shuttle landing

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (CNN) -- NASA will attempt to land space shuttle Atlantis at California's Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, after rainy Florida weather precluded a Kennedy Space Center landing for a third day, officials said.

Rain at Kennedy Space Center in Florida canceled plans to land the space shuttle Atlantis on Saturday.

The first attempt will be made at 11:39 a.m. ET at Edwards, north of Los Angeles. Another opportunity will come at 1:17 p.m. ET.

Rainy weather postponed the shuttle landing on Friday and Saturday. While Atlantis could conceivably remain in space until Monday, NASA has said it wants to land Sunday.

Officials said Sunday's Florida weather was better than conditions Saturday, but atmospheric conditions in Florida remained too unstable for landing.

The landing would be the 53rd at Edwards, NASA officials said. In the early days of the space shuttle program, Edwards was its primary landing site.

Atlantis launched May 11 for NASA's final repair visit to the Hubble Space Telescope. Shuttle astronauts conducted space walks during the mission to perform routine repairs and replace key instruments, in what has been called one of the most ambitious space repair efforts ever attempted.

Hubble was released back into orbit Tuesday morning.

Hubble, which has been in space for nearly two decades, can capture clear images that telescopes on Earth cannot, partly because it does not have to gaze through murky atmospheres.