Posted: Fri, Jul 8, 2005, 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT)
The Japanese space agency JAXA announced late Thursday that the launch of an astronomy spacecraft had been delayed again because of poor weather. The M-5 launch of the Astro-E2 satellite, which had been scheduled for Friday, has now been postponed until no earlier than July 10 because of persisting poor weather at the Uchinoura Space Center. The same poor weather previously delayed the launch from Wednesday. Astro-E2 carries a number of x-ray instruments designed to study astronomical phenomena like black holes. The satellite is a replacement for Astro-E, which was lost in a launch failure in 2000.
