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HOUSTON (AP) - NASA managers decided Thursday to bring U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams back to Earth on an earlier shuttle flight than planned so she doesn't spend more than six months in the cosmos.
Her original return flight from the international space station was scheduled for late June, but a hail storm in February that damaged the space shuttle Atlantis' fuel tank delayed the 2007 schedule by months.
Atlantis, originally due to launch in March, is now scheduled to lift off in early June. Space station and shuttle managers agreed to swap out the station crew members then, instead of on the shuttle Endeavour's June flight as initially planned. Endeavour's flight was pushed back to August.
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