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Shuttle launch postponed until January
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 09 - 12 - 2007


Ongoing fuel engine sensor
problems forced the US space agency NASA on Sunday to cancel the
launch of the shuttle Atlantis and postpone any further attempt until
January at the earliest, according to dpa.
Work had already begun on refuelling the shuttle tanks in hopes of
a 2021 GMT launch on an 11-day mission to take the European Space
Agency space laboratory Columbus into space.
About eight hours before the launch from Kennedy Space Center in
Cape Canaveral, however, the agency said an engine-cutoff sensor
failed while the external tank was being filled.
It was the second launch postponement, further reducing the window
- till December 13 - for an Atlantis mission before the end of the
year. Now, NASA said the earliest possible launch date was January 2.
The launch has already been delayed by two days since
Thursday's original target date after problems emerged with a fuel
cut-off sensor system inside the shuttle and its external fuel tank.
Two of four fuel engine-cutoff sensors failed to function on the
shuttle Atlantis' external fuel tank during fuelling on Thursday,
falling short of the stringent NASA safety requirements that three of
four sensors operate properly, NASA officials said.
Those standards had been upped to four of four for Sunday's launch
by NASA officials mindful of ignored warnings from engineers before
the 2003 Columbia disaster that claimed seven astronauts' lives.
"If we don't have four of four, we'll scrub," NASAs Leroy Cain,
who oversees shuttle operations at the Florida spaceport, had said on
Saturday.
The sensor system helps protect the shuttle's three main engines
by triggering their shutdown if fuel runs unexpectedly low - an
event that could lead to overheating and an explosion, NASA officials
explained.
Fuel sensor problems have caused considerable launch delays since
the retooling of troublesome tanks after the 2003 disaster. NASA
officials spent the past three days reviewing data on the problem and
debating the launch.
The crew on the journey to the station orbiting 400 kilometres
above Earth include German astronaut Hans Schlegel, French astronaut
Leopold Eyharts and five US astronauts.
The mission marks the beginning of a new chapter in international
space flight that is to give Europe its first real foothold in space
with the installation of the ESA laboratory. Space travel has been
dominated by Russia and the United States for half a century.
The ESA lab, built mostly by EADS-Astrium in Bremen, Germany, was
supposed to go into operation in 2004. But when the space shuttle
Columbia disintegrated on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere in 2003,
killing all seven astronauts on board, shuttle flights were
suspended.
The 13-ton, 880-million-euro (1.3-billion-dollar) Columbus module
has seven fixed racks that will accommodate experiments ranging from
medical to material research - from the study of single-cell
organisms and invertebrates to the basic physics of fluids.
The installation will take several spacewalks.


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