Shuttle launch postponed

June 12, 2009

Update 2:25 a.m. EDT Saturday

The launch team is working toward a potential Wednesday launch date for Endeavour, but that would entail delaying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flight. 

 “We had pretty much agreed ahead of time that we would not bump them off the range,” Mike Moses, NASA’s shuttle manager at Kennedy Space Center, told reporters early Saturday. “But nothing is a foregone decision.”

  

NASA canceled Saturday's launch of space shuttle Endeavour after sensors detected hydrogen leaking from an area outside the ship's fuel tank.

No word yet on when the flight will be rescheduled, but NASA has said it would allow launch attempts of the shuttle only through Tuesday before stepping aside so that the rocket carrying its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe could launch on Wednesday. Both the shuttle and the Atlas rocket carrying LRO use tracking, safety and other support services provided by Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which can only support one type of vehicle at a time and needs two days to reconfigure equipment for different types of rockets.

LRO is NASA's debut mission in a new exploration initiative aimed at returning astronauts to the moon by 2020. The focus and scope of the U.S. human space flight program, however, is under review. 

The fuel leak aboard Endeavour is similar to a problem that occurred during preparations to fly Discovery in March. That mission was delayed four days so technicians could replace a suspect vent line.

Earlier post

Shuttle fueled for launch try Saturday

NASA began filling space shuttle Endeavour’s fuel tank Friday night, aiming for an early-morning liftoff on a mission to deliver the last part of Japan’s laboratory to the International Space Station.

Endeavour and its seven-member crew are scheduled to blast off at 7:17 a.m. EDT Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With good weather expected for launch, technicians began pumping a half-million gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into the shuttle’s fuel tanks around 10 p.m. EDT on Friday.

Endeavour is carrying a Japanese-built porch that will be installed on the station’s $2.4 billion Kibo complex, Japan’s primary contribution to the $100 billion station program. The lab includes a robot arm and a small airlock so science experiments can be installed outside the station and retrieved without the need for spacewalks by station or shuttle crewmembers.

Endeavour also is carrying laboratory racks, experiments, supplies and dozens of spare parts, which will be stored aboard the outpost in preparation for when the shuttle is no longer flying. NASA has eight shuttle missions remaining to complete construction of the station. It plans to retire the three-ship fleet at the end of 2010.

To help get the outpost ready, the Endeavour crew plans to spend 12 days at the station and conduct five spacewalks to install the porch, replace batteries and tackle a long list of maintenance tasks.

The mission is NASA’s first since the station’s live-aboard crew size was expanded from three to six members last month. When the shuttle crew arrives, it will bring the total number of people aboard the station to a record 13.

The combined crew includes two Canadian astronauts -- station flight engineer Robert Thirsk and Endeavour astronaut Julie Payette-- Japan’s Koichi Wakata, Europe’s Frank De Winne, Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Roman Romanenko and seven U.S. astronauts. Wakata will be returning home with the shuttle crew after a three-month stay on the station. His replacement is NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, one of Endeavour's four rookie fliers.