Nasa delays Atlantis launch
Atlantis remains on the launch pad ready for tomorrow's rescheduled countdown
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Thursday, 06, Dec 2007 06:34
The launch of Nasa's latest space shuttle mission, Atlantis, has been put back by a little more than a day because of technical difficulties.
Mission control announced that two of the four LH2 engine cut-off sensors "failed to respond appropriately" and that in order to launch a minimum of three sensors must respond.
This is one of several systems that protect the shuttle's main engines by triggering their shutdown if fuel runs unexpectedly low.
As a result launch director Doug Lyons scrubbed the countdown at 09:56 EST (14:56 GMT). A new launch time of 16:09 EST (21:09 GMT) tomorrow has since been instituted, Nasa has announced.
The shuttle remains in place on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, ahead of tomorrow's rescheduled window for lift-off.
In preparation for the relaunch attempt tomorrow the tank's liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen will be drained.
The 11-day mission is intended to deliver a key laboratory component module, known as Columbus, to continue the ongoing construction of the International Space Station.
Further construction will take place to expand the research facilities in the European space agency's module, while the trip also allows a new crew member to be delivered to the complex and another astronaut to return to Earth.