spacetoday.net: Shuttle rollout delayed

Posted: Thu, Aug 28, 2008, 7:13 AM ET (1113 GMT)
STS-124: rollout (NASA/KSC)

The move of the space shuttle Atlantis to the launch pad for an October mission to the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed at least three days because of a minor problem with the shuttle's external tank. Atlantis was scheduled to move to pad 39A on Saturday, but that rollout has now been pushed back to no earlier than Tuesday. Shuttle workers encountered a problem with a pin used in the attachment of the shuttle orbiter to its external tank. The pin became stuck in an umbilical connector; the pin was later removed but it created a small gouge in the liquid hydrogen umbilical plate in the shuttle that will have to be smoothed out. The rollout delay is not expected to affect the planned October 8 launch of the shuttle on mission STS-125.