CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Shuttle Atlantis reversed course and headed back into an assembly building Tuesday after a giant transporter broke down as it was hauling the ship toward a Kennedy Space Center (KSC) launch pad.
The shuttles launch later this month might be delayed a day as a result.
Atlantis and a crew of five astronauts had been tentatively scheduled to launch Jan. 18 on a mission to deliver a U.S. science laboratory to the International Space Station.
That date, however, was pushed back to Jan. 19 so technicians could finish cable repair work on one of the ships twin solid-fuel rocket boosters.
The delayed move to the launch pad, meanwhile, could prompt an additional slip.
"Right now our launch date is no earlier than Jan. 19 and well have to see what this delay in the roll to the pad does to us," said KSC spokesman Joel Wells.
Mounted atop a tracked shuttle transporter, Atlantis began heading out to KSCs launch pad 39A early Tuesday. The 3.5-mile (5.6-kilometer) move, however, was called off after a computer system that controls the crawler transporter crashed.
A backup computer system enabled technicians to haul Atlantis back into KSCs 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building so that engineers could troubleshoot the problem.
A second crawler-transporter, meanwhile, will be pressed into service so that Atlantis can be toted to its launch pad Wednesday. A firm launch date, meanwhile, is expected to be selected by NASA program managers later this week.
Atlantis and its four-man, one-woman crew are slated to attach the U.S. Destiny lab to the new international station. Considered the scientific heart of the outpost, the 32,000-pound (14,515-kilogram) module is to be delivered to pad 39A later this week.
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