After the Atlantis flight, Mr. Sofge said, "we are not sure what will come next."

A12 The space agency added a day to the Atlantis flight.

If the Atlantis flight is delayed, Dr. Lucid may have to remain aboard the Mir with her two Russian colleagues, Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev, until mid-September.

The students were bused to an auditorium of Queens College for the event, in which Dr. Baker, who is 36, showed a film of the Atlantis flight.

Flag Returned, Too As several hundred people looked on, a Queens flag that Dr. Baker had taken with her on the Atlantis flight was raised in front of Borough Hall.

If Columbia should be launched next Saturday, the Atlantis flight would be delayed by several days because ground crews need at least four days between the landing of one shuttle and the liftoff of another.

A booster rocket segment that had first flown 25 years before on Atlantis maiden flight (STS-51-J) was used to help fly STS-132.

Including STS-132, 18 of Atlantis 32 flights were represented by the boosters' segments.

The Atlantis flight, expected to last four days, marks the last secret, solely military shuttle mission.

The Atlantis flight will be the 27th mission since the re-usable shuttles were first tested in 1981.