Written by Derek Kessler on
Sunday, 13 January 2008
NASA is currently looking at Febuary 7th as the launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis and the ESA's Columbus Laboratory. The shuttle was grounded late last year following repeated failures of external fuel tank sensors. Engineers disovered that the problems were caused by a faulty connector that bridged the 500,000 gallon liquid fuel tank and the shuttle's belly, which was replaced yesterday. Russia's planned February 5 launch of an unmaned Progress cargo craft was moved up two days to accomodate the docking space needed by Atlantis. Also, the originally planned February 14 launch of Endeavour and the first segment of JAXA's Kibo laboratory has been pushed back to March.
NASA is currently looking at Febuary 7th as the launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis and the ESA's Columbus Laboratory. The shuttle was grounded late last year following repeated failures of external fuel tank sensors. Engineers disovered that the problems were caused by a faulty connector that bridged the 500,000 gallon liquid fuel tank and the shuttle's belly, which was replaced yesterday. Russia's planned February 5 launch of an unmaned Progress cargo craft was moved up two days to accomodate the docking space needed by Atlantis. Also, the originally planned February 14 launch of Endeavour and the first segment of JAXA's Kibo laboratory has been pushed back to March.
