Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch Delayed Again

NASA officials announced at 9:15 this morning that the Space Shuttle Endeavour will not launch on Monday and will not announce until Monday when the next possible launch attempt will be.

NASA has determined that it must remove the Load Control Assembly (LCA), a switchbox, to continue to troubleshoot the problem as that appears to be where the problem lies. By removing the LCA, and once the problem has been fixed, engineers will need time to conduct tests to assure that the box is working correctly after it’s been put back.

This most likely means at least a weeks delay in the launch. With an Atlas 5 scheduled for launch on May 6th from the Cape Canaveral side, the next earliest launch window would be May 8th. However NASA officials have said that they prefer the May 9th or 10th window. If a launch was to happen on May 9th it would be at 11:46:43 am EDT.

More details will be available later this afternoon when NASA managers will brief the media. You can watch the briefing on NASA TV. At this time no firm time has been set for the briefing but a NASA official said it could be 3:00 or 4:00 pm EDT.

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