CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA will try to launch space
shuttle Endeavour again Wednesday, after repairing a hydrogen gas
leak that thwarted the first attempt.
Top officials decided Monday to bump an unmanned moon mission so
Endeavour could have another shot at flying to the international
space station. The delayed moon mission is NASA's first in a decade
and is critical to the space agency's long-term effort to return
humans to the lunar surface.
The Atlas V rocket had been scheduled to blast off Wednesday
with a pair of lunar probes - a moon-mapping orbiter and a craft
meant to crash into a shadowed crater at the moon's south pole.
That launch is now scheduled for no earlier than Thursday; it would
slip to Friday if the shuttle countdown proceeds trouble-free into
"If you've spent any time on the Space Coast and monitoring
launches, you notice that they tend to attract each other, and
we've got that very situation here," said Chuck Dovale, launch
director for the moon mission.
NASA ended up having to choose between the two missions because
Endeavour could not launch this past Saturday. The potentially
dangerous hydrogen gas leak in the vent line leading to the
shuttle's external fuel tank halted the countdown.
It was the same kind of leak that stalled a shuttle flight back
in March. Technicians finished the repairs Monday, replacing the
vent line hookup and a pair of seals.
The launch is scheduled for 5:40 a.m. Wednesday. Forecasters put
the odds of good weather at 80 percent.
NASA is giving Endeavour just one chance, on Wednesday, to get
off on its space station construction mission before making way for
the moon shot.
Each mission faces a tight launch schedule.
Endeavour and its crew of seven must be flying by this weekend,
otherwise it will have to wait until mid-July. That's because of
unfavorable sun angles that would heat the shuttle too much while
it is docked to the space station.
Delaying Endeavour's 16-day trip until July would end up
postponing the next few shuttle missions and, as a result, make it
harder for NASA to complete its eight remaining missions by the end
of next year. That's the deadline imposed by the White House so
NASA can focus on its next spaceship, intended to carry astronauts
to the moon by 2020.
NASA's newest moon probes, on the other hand, need to be
launched by Saturday. Otherwise, the space agency will have to wait
until the end of June before trying again. Waiting that long would
complicate the moon-impacting craft's flight and use more fuel.
Dovale said the moon mission will be ready to lift off as early
as Thursday, if NASA falls behind in its shuttle launch
If Endeavour has to step aside for the moon shot, that would
bump the shuttle flight into July unless it was shortened, an
unappealing option for the space station program, said NASA test
director Steve Payne. The Air Force needs two days to switch its
launch-monitoring systems from one type of rocket to another.
Endeavour and its astronauts will deliver and install the last
piece of Japan's space station lab and drop off hundreds of pounds
of food for the six space station residents. Five spacewalks are
Once the shuttle docks, there will be 13 people together in
space for the first time ever.