Posted: Thu, Jan 24, 2002, 12:27 PM ET (1727 GMT)
The rollout of the space shuttle Columbia was put on hold Wednesday when the giant crawler transporter that hauls the shuttle stack to the pad malfunctioned. The problem with the crawler took place shortly after it started its 5.6-kilometer move from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Pad 39A. The glitch stranded the shuttle, mated to its external tank and solid rocket motors, in the doorway of the VAB. Shuttle managers had hoped to fix the problem and move the shuttle to the pad on Thursday, but now say it will be Friday before they can resume the rollout. The problem is not expected to affect the February 28 launch of Columbia on STS-109, a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.
