spacetoday.net: Weather delays X-37B launch

Weather delays X-37B launch

Posted: Sat, Mar 5, 2011, 9:54 AM ET (1454 GMT)
Atlas 5 carrying X-37B OTV-2 before launch (ULA)

Poor weather postponed Friday's scheduled launch of a military spaceplane on an Atlas 5 from Florida. The Atlas 5 501 was scheduled to launch Friday afternoon from Cape Canaveral to place the X-37B spaceplane into orbit, but clouds forced mission controllers to postpone the launch. A new launch attempt is scheduled for Saturday at 4:09 pm EST (2109 GMT). The mission, designated Orbital Test Vehicle 2, is the second flight for the X-37B, a small spaceplane originally developed by NASA. The first X-37B launched last April and remained in orbit until early December, landing on the runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.