NASA delays shuttle launch at least until May 8 (Reuters)

Sunday, May 1, 2011 12:01 PM By dwi

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA on Sunday suspended the start of expanse shuttle Endeavour at small until May 8 as work continues to hold an electronics difficulty that scuttled Friday's start attempt, officials said.

"It's not feat to be some early than the eighth," said Mike Moses, head of NASA's start assignment direction team. "Don't verify that as a start date, verify that as a target."

NASA tried to start Endeavour on weekday on its 25th and test flight to have the $2 1000000000 Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector to the International Space Station.

A difficulty with a heating grouping on one of the ship's hydraulic noesis generators prompted managers to kibosh the countdown. The heaters ready render from chilling in the line, preventing it from rupturing in the algid clean of space.

NASA was hopeful that the difficulty would have an easy resolution and had retargeted Endeavour's start for Monday, but boost trouble-shooting indicated the glitch was more complicated than officials hoped initially.

Endeavour's sextet astronauts were headed back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for a some life of additional upbringing before they return for the next start attempt, NASA said.

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is mated to Endeavour man Mark Kelly, was on hand for the launch. But the U.S. expanse agency said family members of crew members mitt Cape Canaveral after the firm retard declared on Sunday.

Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was soberly scraped during an assassination attempt on Jan 8 and had not been seen publicly since then.

The Endeavour assignment is the next-to-last for the 30-year-old shuttle program, which is ending after sister board Atlantis completes its test voyage this summer.

Endeavour was the replacement board for Challenger, which was forfeited in a mortal 1986 start accident. It is the youngest of NASA's three surviving spaceships and the ordinal to be retired.

Discovery, the fast leader, returned from its test expanse assignment in March, and Atlantis is cod to end the shuttle program with a start on June 28.

(Editing by Tom Brown and Doina Chiacu)


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