 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Washington (AFP) May 6, 2011 The launch of the US space shuttle Endeavour has been delayed for a third time, until at least May 16, as engineers try to fix an electrical problem, NASA announced Friday. "NASA managers met Friday afternoon and determined space shuttle Endeavour will launch no earlier than Monday, May 16 at 8:56 am," the space agency said. Technicians will continue to repair and retest the electric circuitry that caused NASA to postpone the launch on April 29 less than three hours before liftoff, it said. The May 16 launch is supposed to be the US space program's second-to-last shuttle flight to the International Space Station, followed by Atlantis in June. After that, the 30-year-old shuttle program will end. The glitch has been traced to a power problem in the aft load control assembly-2 (ALCA-2), a box of switches that control electrical flow to heaters that keep fuel lines from freezing in orbit. The piece was replaced on Wednesday. Since then, technicians have been running a battery of tests on the box and will continue to do so over the weekend. NASA has scheduled a press conference Monday at 3 pm (19H00 GMT) to provide an update. The six astronauts, including Italian Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency, returned to their home base in Houston, Texas early Sunday to continue preparations for the launch. Endeavour will carry a $2-billion, seven-ton particle physics detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which will be left at the space station to scour the universe for dark matter and antimatter. The 14-day mission, known as STS-134, is to be commanded by US astronaut Mark Kelly, whose wife, US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head sustained in January. Giffords was allowed by her rehab doctors in Houston to fly to Florida to watch the planned April 29 launch, and she is expected to return again for the next attempt, her office said.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Shuttle at NASA Watch NASA TV via Space.TV Space Shuttle News at Space-Travel.Com
Engineers working to fix Endeavour faultCape Canaveral, Fla. (UPI) May 2, 2011 NASA engineers say they have identified the likely source of a problem on space shuttle Endeavour that led to the scrubbing of last week's Florida launch. Technicians said the failure was in a box of switches controlling power feed to heaters on a fuel line for Endeavour's auxiliary power unit, a NASA release said Monday. The box will be replaced but the work and testing will tak ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
