This story was updated at 8:50 p.m. EDT.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Stormy
weather again foiled NASA's plans to launch the space shuttle Endeavour late
Monday, the fifth setback for the delay-plagued mission.
A cluster of lightning-spawning thunderstorms
swooped in ahead of the shuttle's 6:51 p.m. EDT (2251 GMT) planned liftoff
time, forcing mission managers to call off the attempted launch from NASA's
seaside Kennedy Space Center.
"Certainly lightning rules are
something that we don't want to cross when it comes to launching the space
shuttle," said launch director Pete Nickolenko.
NASA will try again on Wednesday at
6:03 p.m. EDT (2203 GMT), when the weather outlook will improve to a 60 percent
likelihood of favorable conditions.
"The weather looks fairly
decent for Wednesday," said launch weather forecaster Scott McCormick of
the 45th weather squadron.
Mission managers decided to stand
down tomorrow to allow ground crews time to replace a loose
plastic cap on one of the vehicle's 44 small rocket thrusters.
The cover detached yesterday during
Endeavour's fourth launch attempt, which was also
canceled because of bad weather. Though the cap doesn't pose a threat to
launch, if rain water gets into the nozzle it could freeze into ice and render
the thruster useless.
Today's disappointment was the fifth
for Endeavour's construction
flight to the International Space Station, which has been delayed
repeatedly by inclement weather and a gas leak that has since been fixed.
"Again, the vehicle and our
teams were ready, but the weather has just bitten us again," Nickolenko told Endeavour's crew. "We're going to have
to declare a scrub again today...sorry about that."
Shuttle commander Mark Polansky said he understood. "That's
the nature of our business," he said. "Like I
said before, when the time is right, we'll be here and we'll be ready."
So far, NASA hoped to
launch Endeavour on time in order to avoid a space traffic conflict between its
marathon 16-day mission and an unmanned Russian cargo ship that is also due at
the space station later this month. To make way for the Progress spacecraft to
dock, NASA is planning ways to shift around activities during Endeavour's
flight to allow the shuttle to undock earlier than planned. If Endeavour
launches on Wednesday, the mission shouldn't have to give up any goals, but
simply rearrange its schedule, Endeavour's mission management chair Mike Moses
said today.
"The teams are working through that
right now," Moses said. "They think they have a real solid plan. We
have Wednesday now in the bag as a launch attempt."
If the shuttle cannot
get off the ground Wednesday, NASA may try for Thursday, though that would
likely require cutting at least one spacewalk from the STS-127 mission. After
that, the shuttle must stand down until July 26.
Endeavour is slated for a grueling
mission packed with five spacewalks and complicated robotic maneuvers to finish
construction on the space station's Japanese-built Kibo lab. Polansky will lead a crew
of seven astronauts to deliver and install an outdoor research platform for
Kibo, as well as a host of new supplies. Endeavour's flight will also drop off
NASA astronaut Tim Kopra to begin a long -duration stint at the space station as
an Expedition 20 flight engineer.
SPACE.com is providing continuous
coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz at Cape Canaveral and senior
editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission
updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
advertisement
