A new attempt was set for 12:44 p.m. (1944 GMT) Tuesday, with a launch window of two hours and four minutes, as meteorologists forecast a 60 percent chance of favorable weather conditions.

"It looks like the weather will not be improving so we would like to scrub at this time," shuttle launch director Dave King told the six-person crew, which includes four Americans, a Japanese and a German.

Endeavor was to carry 14.5 tonnes of radar equipment for an 11-day mission focused on creating a high-resolution, three-dimensional map of the Earth's surface.

It would have been the 97th flight of a US space shuttle since the start of the program in 1981.

Shortly before the announcement, a computer glitch led officials to halt the countdown for more than one hour.

Pre-flight tests uncovered trouble with the enhanced master events controller (EMEC). There are two of the controllers on board, which signal the separation of the solid rocket boosters and the external tank during ascent.

Engineers then successfully tested the system and gave the green light for the launch, which had been scheduled for 12:47 p.m. (1747 GMT), only to have the weather thwart their efforts.

Still, "the EMEC unit has not been exonerated yet and they are going to troubleshoot it," said Lisa Malone, a spokeswoman for the Kennedy Space center.

The problem may continue to plague the mission. NASA has scheduled a press conference late Monday to explain the severity of the problem.

"If it's a software problem, the engineers should be able to figure it out quickly," said Alan Buis, spokesman for Boeing, which manufactures the units. "But if it's a hardware problem, it's going to take at least two days to replace the unit and some additional days to retest it."

For two days, the launch had seemed uncertain, after the unexpected discovery of a defective joint in the motor of another shuttle.

Routine inspections after December's flight of the space shuttle Discovery revealed that a circular metal joint on the interior of an engine fuel pump had come loose during launch and been damaged by turbine blades.

Before giving a green light for Monday's launch, flight officials wanted to make sure there was no sign of a similar problem aboard Endeavour, which there was not.

"What we've learned was that the likelihood of having a failed tip seal to reoccur again is very, very low," Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore said Sunday.

Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Satellite Launch To Boost DTH In India
Calcutta, India (SPX) Dec 28, 2005
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