NASAs next mission to the International Space Station wont take place until late January, as fallout from an ongoing investigation into possible shuttle wiring flaws continues to erode the agencys launch schedule.
Shuttle Atlantis, which had been targeted for blastoff on Dec. 2 to deliver equipment and supplies to the space station, is not expected to fly until Jan. 20 at the earliest, said Johnson Space Center spokesman James Hartsfield.
The reason for the delay is two-fold: First, the shuttle, which is being temporarily stored in Kennedy Space Centers Vehicle Assembly Building, has not been able to get into a processing hangar so workers can begin preparing the ship for flight, said Hartsfield.
The bay earmarked for Atlantis is occupied by shuttle Endeavour, which is being inspected for possible wiring problems. The inspection was ordered after a wire short-circuited during the last shuttle launch, causing two key shuttle engine computers to shut down five seconds after blastoff.
The work, which is being conducted on all four of NASAs shuttles, has delayed Endeavours launch on a radar-mapping mission from Sept. 16 to at least Oct. 7. NASA is also considering delaying a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope that was originally scheduled for October.
Second, because of sun angles on the station and temperature constraints, NASA cannot fly Atlantis to the outpost between late December and early- to mid-January, said Hartsfield.
Atlantis delay is just the beginning of a long-list of postponements to the closely linked station assembly sequence. The heart of the station, the long-delayed Russian service module, is undergoing testing and appears to be on track for its scheduled launch on Nov. 12, according to top managers with NASA and Boeing, the prime station contractor.
However, shuttle flights scheduled for next year to add structures and facilities to the International Space Station face delays of one to three months, according to NASA internal planning documents.
The first two elements of the space station were launched into orbit last year and hitched together by a shuttle crew last December. NASA and an international partnership that includes Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada are collaborating to build and operate the $60 billion outpost.
The first crew to live on the station had been scheduled to begin their mission in March. That flight is expected to be delayed until April.
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