Posted: Thu, Mar 11, 2004, 8:53 PM ET (0153 GMT)
The launch of the first post-Columbia shuttle mission, already delayed until March 2005, could be pushed back up to nine additional months because of a problem with the shuttle's speed brakes, the Huntsville Times reported Thursday. At a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council in Huntsville on Wednesday, Michael Kostelnik, the deputy associate administrator for shuttle and ISS, said that engineers have found corrosion and microscopic cracks in actuators that operate the shuttle's rudder speed brakes, used to slow down the shuttle before landing. The problem does not directly affect Discovery, the shuttle set to launch on mission STS-114, but Kostelnik said that there would be no spares available to perform repairs on Atlantis, the shuttle that will be prepared to fly a rescue mission if necessary. If replacements for the faulty components, or some other solution to the problem, cannot be found, Kostelnik said they would have to delay the launch of Discovery as much as nine months. The report didn't explain why the delay could be that long, or what role Endeavour, the third orbiter currently undergoing a major refit, could play in the return to flight activities.

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•  Huntsville Times article