NASA Stops Shuttle Countdown

[Geekyfanboy]

Source NASA/Yahoo News

NASA called off today's launch of space shuttle Atlantis after detecting problems with fuel gauges in the shuttle's external tank.

Officials will try again Friday to launch the shuttle, NASA said.

Two of the four sensors in the shuttle's liquid hydrogen tank indicated that the tank was dry, even though there was fuel inside. Three sensors must be working properly to fly, NASA spokesman Paul Foerman said.

The sensors are critical to ensure that the shuttle's three main engines don't shut down too soon or too late during liftoff.

Problems with the sensors have delayed shuttle launches before, most recently in September 2006.

NASA had been hoping for an on-time takeoff. Each of the year's previous shuttle countdowns have ended with an on-the-dot departure, and NASA wants to make it four in a row with Atlantis. It will carry a crew of seven and Europe's long-awaited space station lab, named Columbus.

About 750 Europeans connected to the scientific laboratory — a $2 billion project begun nearly a quarter-century ago — were in town for the launch and expected to gather at the space center.

Columbus is "our cornerstone, our baby, our module, our laboratory," said Alan Thirkettle, the European Space Agency's station program manager.

Columbus will be the second laboratory added to the international space station. NASA's Destiny lab made its debut in 2001, and Japan's huge lab Kibo — which means hope — will go up in three sections beginning on the very next shuttle mission in February.

Scientific work will start almost immediately inside Columbus, which is essentially packaged and ready to go.

Thirkettle sees Columbus as a stepping stone for Europe to the U.S.-led moon expeditions planned for late in the next decade. To gear up for that, NASA is under presidential orders to finish the space station and retire its three remaining shuttles in 2010.

Counting Atlantis' upcoming flight, that leaves 12 shuttle missions to the space station and one, next summer, to the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he doesn't expect that number to change, which means some space station equipment and experiments will never make it up.

Aside from the interruption caused by the 2003 Columbia tragedy, the actual building of the space station in orbit has gone well, Griffin said. That's in stark contrast to the space station's planning and development, which dragged on for years and contributed to Columbus' prolonged grounding.

"We the United States, as the senior partner in the space station coalition, did not plan it well," Griffin said on the eve of Columbus' launch. "It has taken far too long and I'll just leave it at that."

[Jen]

Wow, it just hit me that in my life time, I saw rockets carrying astronauts replaced by the space shuttles, and in two years I will see their retirement. I saw a space station's construction and very soon it's completion. And in the not so distant future I'll watch them  explore the moon...maybe a moon base will be next.  Space really is our final frontier. I hope it never ceases to hold our interest.

Do they ever list the experiments they are working on, on the space station? I don't recall seeing any in depth articles on that.

[Rico]

Here is some info on the Station experiments.  Google yielded other links too.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/

....Launch is now set for tomorrow at 4:09 pm EST.

[Rico]

New launch time and date.....

Sat., Dec. 8th at 3:43pm EST