spacetoday.net: O'Keefe says fall shuttle launch unlikely

Posted: Fri, Feb 13, 2004, 11:37 AM ET (1637 GMT)
STS-107: launch (NASA/KSC)

The return to flight of the space shuttle this fall is unlikely because of slow progress on two key projects, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Thursday. O'Keefe, appearing before the House Science Committee, said that he felt it the odds of launching the shuttle on the first post-Columbia flight during a month-long window that begins in mid-September were "very low". He cites delays developing a camera mounted on a boom that would be used to inspect the underside of the space shuttle in orbit for any damage. He also said that work has been delayed on clearing the shuttle’s external tank for flight. If the shuttle cannot launch by mid-October the next launch window is a brief period in mid-November, followed by a similarly brief period in January 2005. Shuttle launches are constrained to those periods where the shuttle's launch takes place in daylight to permit photography of the launch, in addition to existing orbital mechanical constraints on shuttle launches to the International Space Station. An official decision on delaying the STS-114 launch could come next week.