But NASA managers said they would be unable to set a launch date and restart the countdown until they have pinpointed and fixed the cause of a fuel gauge failure that prompted the last-minute cancelation of Wednesday's liftoff.

"Right now, rather than give you a launch date, I'm going to tell you what our real status is: We are going forward on a day by day basis," said Wayne Hale, deputy manager of NASAs shuttle program.

"As soon as we find the problem, we'll fix the problem immediately and as soon as we have fixed the problem, we will be four days from launch," Hale told journalists at the Kennedy Space Center, near Florida's Cape Canaveral.

NASA officials have sounded gradually less optimistic. They initially indicated they might be able to sent Discovery into orbit on Saturday, then said a litftoff could not take place before the end of next week, and finally insisted it was too early to set a launch date.

Engineers at the Florida seashore installation Friday emptied the shuttle's massive external tank and unloaded cryogenic reactants used to power fuel cells, to allow safe access to an electronics box that processes signals from the tank's fuel level sensors.

If the shuttle is not ready in time for a July liftoff, NASA will have to wait for the next launch window, which runs from September 9 to 24.

"It is clear we are still looking at launching during this window," said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.

But the delay is a major disappointment for the agency, which has sought to re-establish the prestige of the US space program after Columbia burst into flames and broke up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003.

All seven crew members were killed, and NASA grounded the remaining shuttles in its fleet.

The agency was forced to completely rethink the shuttle program and has made major changes to the shuttles to reduce the risk of a new accident.

The new delays were compounded by NASA's desire to launch during daylight hours. This leaves only a limited timeframe during which Discovery can lift off for its rendezvous with the orbiting International Space Station.

Hundreds of engineers were mobilized to study as many as 200 potential causes for the malfunctioning fuel gauge system, and what needed to be done to fix it.

Hale said technicians would work through the weekend to run tests, and would continue testing until they pinpoint the root of the malfunction.

If the problem is serious, NASA will have to roll the shuttle back five kilometers (three miles) from its seashore pad to its hangar.

The faulty sensor is one of four that sends data on the levels of hydrogen in the spacecraft's massive external fuel tank, to determine when the three engines should be shut off during the ascent into orbit.

NASA experienced a similar problem in April but never established what caused it. The problem disappeared at the time after technicians replaced the cabling and the electronic boxes attached to the gauges.

In another glitch, a plastic and foam protective cover fell 20 metersfeet) off one of Discovery's windows, damaging tiles on one of the two orbital maneuvering systems on Tuesday.

The US space agency had initially hoped to launch Discovery in May, but eventually decided it needed more time to prepare the orbiter and to conduct a closer review of pre-flight preparations.

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