spacetoday.net: Shuttle launch postponed until July

Posted: Wed, Jun 17, 2009, 5:51 AM ET (0951 GMT)

NASA scrubbed Wednesday's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour after another gaseous hydrogen leak developed similar but not identical to the one that postponed the previous launch attempt. NASA scrubbed the launch of mission STS-127 a little less than four hours before the scheduled 5:40 am EDT (0940 GMT) launch time after detecting another leak in a gaseous hydrogen venting system on the external tank. Shuttle managers have decided to wait until the next series of launch windows opens on July 11 before making another attempt so that engineers have sufficient time to understand and resolve the problem. Fueling itself was delayed by about three hours because of stormy conditions at the Kennedy Space Center, threatening to postpone the launch itself, but conditions abated in time to allow fueling to begin. A similar leak scrubbed a launch attempt Saturday, and afterwords technicians replaced seals on the system, believing on past experience that this would resolve the problem.