spacetoday.net: Atlas 5 launch scrubbed

Posted: Thu, Mar 10, 2005, 9:24 PM ET (0224 GMT)
Atlas 5 before Inmarsat 4 launch (J. Foust)

The launch of an Atlas 5 carrying a heavy communications satellite was scrubbed Thursday because of a technical glitch late in the countdown. The Atlas 5 431 was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 4:42 pm EST (2132 GMT), at the beginning of a 15-minute launch window. However, during the countdown engineers found an intermittent problem with an element of the rocket's flight termination system. While that problem was apparently solved in time to launch the vehicle by the end of the launch window, a second problem with a "pogo" suppression system on the vehicle caused the launch to be scrubbed. The launch has been rescheduled for the same time Friday, with a 70-percent chance of acceptable weather. The Atlas 5 is carrying the Inmarsat 4-F1 commercial communications satellites which, at a mass of about six tons, is the heaviest such satellite ever built.