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Cape Canaveral (US):
A gathering storm forced NASA to cancel for a fourth time the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on its mission to the International Space station, officials said.
"Looks like the team is ready but the weather is not. At this time we are no-go," the US space agency's launch director Pete Nickolenko said with little more than 10 minutes to go before the planned takeoff.
The shuttle launch was rescheduled for today at 1721 IST, Nickolenko said.
The cancellation was forced by a storm system that developed late afternoon near the launch site in Florida and gradually moved within 32 kilometres of launchpad 39A, where the Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew were waiting to take off.
NASA officials waited until just minutes before liftoff to scrub the launch, hoping that a sea breeze might shift the weather system further afield, as has happened before.
But as the minutes ticked down, there were even reports of lightning strikes within miles of the Kennedy Space Center, forcing the cancellation.
Lightning strikes were responsible for the third of four delays to Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to assemble the Japanese Kibo laboratory.
"Looks like the team is ready but the weather is not. At this time we are no-go," the US space agency's launch director Pete Nickolenko said with little more than 10 minutes to go before the planned takeoff.
The shuttle launch was rescheduled for today at 1721 IST, Nickolenko said.
The cancellation was forced by a storm system that developed late afternoon near the launch site in Florida and gradually moved within 32 kilometres of launchpad 39A, where the Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew were waiting to take off.
NASA officials waited until just minutes before liftoff to scrub the launch, hoping that a sea breeze might shift the weather system further afield, as has happened before.
But as the minutes ticked down, there were even reports of lightning strikes within miles of the Kennedy Space Center, forcing the cancellation.
Lightning strikes were responsible for the third of four delays to Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to assemble the Japanese Kibo laboratory.
