Originally scheduled for 9:18 p.m. Thursday (0218 GMT Friday), the launch was delayed for 24 hours and has now been set for 8:47 p.m. Friday (0147 GMT Saturday).

The 10-day mission is destined to fix the orbiting Hubble telescope which has been out of service since mid-November.

"We're down 24 hours. We need to do more analysis," said NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone.

Late Wednesday, NASA officials found a welding flaw in one of the external tanks of one of its space shuttles, but said the Discovery mission was not affected.

However, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided Thursday not to take any chances, and cancelled the launch.

Instead, they plan to further examine the welding flaw to see if it could cause any problems with the Discovery launch.

"We need time to analyze additional weld that this company has provided for different parts of the shuttle and also the three struts that holds the feed lines going from the external tank to the shuttle engines," Malone said.

The enormous tank contains liquid oxygen and hydrogen under pressure and keeps them chilled at 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit). Their combination provides the necessary fuel for the shuttle's engine to power the lift-off.

The Discovery mission to repair Hubble has now been postponed seven times due to technical problems.

NASA has the option of trying again late Saturday if the Friday night launched is cancelled. Forecasters predict an 80 percent chance of favorable weather for launch attempts on Friday and Saturday, NASA said.

Discovery's launch would be postponed until next year if all of this week's attempts were to be scratched. NASA officials want to avoid having shuttles in space at the turn of the new year, fearing possible glitches from the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem.

The mission, the 27th for Discovery, is to repair the orbiting Hubble space telescope which has been out of service since mid-November, when yet another one of the Hubble's six gyroscopes began malfunctioning and had to be shut off.

A minimum of three gyroscopes, which help Hubble's pointing system keep steady during observations, are necessary for the telescope to effectively gather information.

Hubble was placed in a "safe-hold" mode, by which ground control can control the telescope using only two gyroscopes, after a third gyro had failed in November, according to NASA.

Discovery's crew will include two members from the European Space Agency (ESA), Claude Nicollier of Switzerland and Jean-Francois Clervoy of France, and four experienced US astronauts. A fifth US astronaut, Scott Kelly, will be on his first flight in space. Their work is to involve four separate space walks, each lasting six hours.

The astronauts will replace the six gyroscopes as well as the telescope's on-board computer and one of the radio transmitters used to send data from the telescope back to earth.

Also a new thermal shield will be applied to the telescope to protect it from solar radiation and regulators installed for its battery power supply.

Latest NASA Status Report
Cape Canaveral - December 16, 1999 - Space Shuttle managers today announced a 24-hour delay in the launch of Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-103. The next launch opportunity is at 8:47 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17.

Shuttle engineers have requested the additional time to confirm the quality control processes for Arrowhead Products of Los Alamitos, California.

Arrowhead is a vendor that provides welded propellant lines to the Shuttle Program, including main propulsion system (MPS) lines in the orbiter's aft engine compartment.

On Tuesday, the vendor's quality control personnel notified NASA of a welding flaw on a pressure line being fabricated for use on a future external tank.

While Shuttle engineers have already exonerated Shuttle Discovery's external tank of any welding flaws, the on going evaluation will confirm the quality of the procedures used to manufacture Shuttle MPS lines.

Though managers are confident in the structural integrity of Discovery's MPS lines, this evaluation is being conducted as a precaution.

Launch managers at KSC are not working any significant issues and stand ready to support tomorrow's launch opportunity. The countdown clock will hold at the T-11 hour mark and a decision to begin tanking operations will be made at about noon tomorrow.

Weather officials indicate a 60 percent chance that weather will prohibit tomorrow's launch. The primary concern is thick cloud layers and the possibility of coastal showers.

NASA's Shuttle Web Center

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