Weather nixes shuttle launch again

7/2/2006

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Stormy weather prevented NASA from launching Discovery for the second day in a row today, extending a yearlong grounding of the space shuttle prompted by persistent trouble with fuel-tank foam.

Launch officials said they would try again Tuesday, on the Fourth of July, after giving the work force a day of rest and a chance to replenish the shuttle's on-board fuel. The weather was expected to improve by Tuesday, although rain was still in the forecast.

"We've concluded that we're not going to have a chance to launch today," launch director Mike Leinbach announced to his team.

Replying from the cockpit, shuttle commander Steven Lindsey said: "Looking out the window it doesn't look good today, and we think that's a great plan."

He noted that July Fourth would be "a good day to launch."

Lindsey and the six other astronauts had boarded the fueled spaceship just an hour earlier for what would have been only the second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster. The countdown was halted with more than an hour remaining, much earlier than Saturday's postponement.

The afternoon sky was considerably darker than on Saturday and left NASA with little choice but to call off the launch to the international space station.

Thunderstorms were moving in quickly from the west, and lightning was detected within a few miles of the launch pad. The astronauts rode back to crew quarters in the rain.

The back-to-back delays cost NASA an estimated $2 million in overtime pay and fuel costs.

Among the invited guests who stuck around for try No. 2 were family members of the perished Columbia astronauts. Vice President Dick Cheney was back in Washington, after a brief visit to the space center today.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin approved launching the shuttle for the 12-day mission despite the concerns of two top agency managers who wanted additional foam repairs. Columbia was brought down by a chunk of flyaway fuel-tank foam insulation, and a piece broke off Discovery's tank last July, barely missing the shuttle.

A lot of other people thought approving the mission was a good idea, Griffin said today in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"I judged the odds to be very low that we're risking a vehicle," Griffin said, according to a CNN transcript. "I've kind of steeped myself in this problem over the last month, and I am quite confident that we've got a very good chance of flying and flying safely."

"We think we're in good shape; we're in solid shape to go," Griffin said.

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