spacetoday.net: Weather, technical issues delay GRAIL launch

Updated: Fri, Sep 9, 2011, 8:00 AM ET (1200 GMT)
Originally Posted: Thu, Sep 8, 2011, 10:23 PM ET (0223 GMT)
GRAIL illustration (NASA)

Gusty upper-level winds forced NASA to postpone Thursday's scheduled launch of a lunar orbiter mission by a day, and technical concerns will delay it at least an additional day. NASA had planned to launch the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft on a Delta 2 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday morning, but high winds in the upper atmosphere scrubbed the launch. NASA initially rescheduled the launch for Friday, but late Thursday night announced the launch would be pushed back to at least Saturday to allow more time to review data collected during the "detanking" operation after Thursday morning's scrub. Launch is now planned for no earlier than Saturday at either 8:29:45 or 9:08:52 am EDT (1229:45 or 1308:52 GMT). GRAIL will use two spacecraft to map the Moon's gravity field to far higher precision than before, yielding new information about the Moon's interior.