Space Shuttle (American, Of Course) Launch Pushed Back to Wednesday

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292070,00.html

Space Shuttle Launch Pushed Back to Wednesday

Friday, August 03, 2007

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA has delayed next week's launch of space

shuttle Endeavour by one day because of unexpected work to fix a leak in the

crew cabin, officials said Friday.

Liftoff is now set for Wednesday evening.

Engineers installed a new valve Thursday to replace a leaky one in

Endeavour's crew cabin. Although the unit tested fine, NASA ran out of time

to meet a Tuesday launch, said NASA spokesman George Diller.

Combined with thunderstorms that disrupted work at the launch pad earlier

this week, "it just didn't translate into enough time to get there," Diller

said. "They were literally trying to put 25 pounds of work in a 10-pound

bag."

The replacement valve was taken from Atlantis. NASA has yet to determine

what was wrong with the one removed from Endeavour.

Endeavour's one-day postponement gives a little extra breathing room for

NASA's Phoenix Mars lander, set to blast off aboard an unmanned rocket

Saturday.

The space agency has only three weeks to launch the lander before being

forced to wait two years, and officials have indicated they would probably

put that flight ahead of Endeavour's.

NASA needs at least two days between rocket launches.

Among Endeavour's seven-member crew to the international space station is

Barbara Morgan, the first schoolteacher-turned-astronaut, who was Christa

McAuliffe's backup in 1986. McAuliffe was killed aboard Challenger along

with six others.