NASA
managers decided Friday to officially aim for a Feb. 7 launch of the shuttle
Atlantis and delay another flight to mid-March as engineers work to replace an
electrical connector on the orbiter's fuel tank.
The launch
target will allow time to install and test the new connector and avoid
schedule conflicts with other spacecraft that, like Atlantis, are bound for the
International Space Station (ISS), NASA officials said in a statement.
Atlantis
and its STS-122 astronaut crew are now scheduled to launch at 2:47 p.m. EST
(1947 GMT) on Feb. 7, two months late, on a planned 11-day
mission to deliver the European Space Agency's (ESA) Columbus laboratory to
the ISS.
The spaceflight
has been delayed
since early December by fuel sensor glitches, which engineers traced back
to a suspect electrical connector at the bottom of Atlantis' external tank. Engineers
are expected to complete the installation of a replacement connector on
Saturday, NASA officials said.
NASA also
pushed back the planned Feb. 14 launch of the shuttle Endeavour to mid-March.
That mission, STS-123, will deliver a robotic arm addition and the first
segment of Japan's Kibo laboratory to the ISS.
The new
shuttle launch dates, as well as a decision by Russia's Federal Space Agency to
move the launch of an ISS-bound unmanned Progress cargo ship up two days to
Feb. 5, were tailored to suit the work schedules of the space station's current
Expedition 16 crew, NASA officials said.
In addition
to a spacewalk
repair of starboard solar wing motor slated for later this month, the
station's three-person crew is also gearing up for the arrival of the European
cargo ship Jules Verne. Built for the ESA, Jules Verne
is the first of a series of Automated Transfer Vehicles that designed to haul
fresh supplies to astronauts aboard the ISS.
Atlantis'
STS-122 mission will mark the first of five scheduled shuttle flights slated to
launch this year. The shuttle Discovery is scheduled for an April launch to
deliver second element of the station's Kibo lab.
A planned
August mission, also aboard Atlantis, is aimed at overhauling the Hubble Space
Telescope while a September flight of Endeavour will haul fresh supplies to the
ISS.
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