NASA shuttle managers need more time to investigate and repair the cracks in shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank. Thursday, they delayed the launch of Discovery's final mission again, moving out of the next launch window, which extended from Feb. 3 to Feb. 10. No new date was established, but the next window extends from Feb. 27 through March 6. The date could be advanced some, but February is a busy month for the launching of Russian, Japanese and European cargo capsules to the station. Meanwhile, engineers continue to investigate why the cracks appeared during a Nov. 5 launch scrub. (full story)
3 comments:
Always looks like a long time but time is passing incredibly fast.
They finally discovered it was some unknown problem in the heat treatment of the Al-Li alloy. Makes you wonder if the same thing could happen to any rocket or if the reduced margins on the shuttle brought it out.
It will be a bitter sweet launch at the Cape...
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