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NASA Delays Next Endeavour Launch Attempt to Monday
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
posted: 04:45 pm ET
31 May 2002
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Stormy weather is expected to persist over the Kennedy Space Center this weekend, prompting NASA mission managers to delay shuttle Endeavour's next launch attempt to Monday at the earliest. Liftoff of this crew rotation, supply and assembly mission to the International Space Station is expected between 4 and 8 p.m. EDT (2000 and 2400 GMT). An exact launch time will be announced Sunday afternoon. Air Force weather forecasters predict an 80 percent chance of unacceptable conditions at launch pad 39A on Saturday and Sunday. The forecast improves slightly for Monday and Tuesday when there is a 70 percent chance of bad weather, with the probability of bad weather dropping to 60 percent for Wednesday through next Friday. Considering those odds and the operational requirements for the flight, NASA managers decided to keep Endeavour on the ground and spend the weekend topping off the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks that are inside the spaceplane, said KSC spokesman Bruce Buckingham. Those tanks supply the chemical reactants that are combined within fuel cells to generate electricity and drinking water. Power requirements for this busy 12-day flight are particularly high so NASA wants those tanks as full as possible before launch. The seven persons who make up the STS-111 and Expedition Five flight crews will remain in Florida for the weekend and enjoy a generally light timeline that includes reviewing their flight plan, attending weather briefings and -- for commander Ken Cockrell and pilot Paul Lockhart -- flying the Shuttle Training Aircraft as weather allows.Patiently waiting in orbit are the Expedition Four crew of Yuri Onufrienko, Dan Bursch and Carl Walz, who have spent the past six months in orbit. In fact, with this delay in Endeavour's departure, Bursch and Walz are expected to break the 188-day record for the longest American spaceflight. Shannon Lucid presently holds the record thanks to her 1996 stay at the Russian space station Mir. Endeavour was originally targeted to launch Thursday but summer afternoon thunderstorms drifted too close to the space center and forced managers to scrub the initial launch attempt. A Friday launch attempt was ordered up, but before it really got started managers called off the try when it became apparent the weather was not going to cooperate, and that storm cells moving over the space center Friday afternoon threatened to drop hail on the shuttle. With overcast skies, rain, thunderstorms and even the brief appearance of a funnel cloud along Florida's Space Coast, the Mission Management Team convened at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) and decided to stand down for the weekend, top off the shuttle's consumables and then look again at the situation Monday morning.
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