Atlantis launch postponed to January

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Atlantis will not launch until at least Jan. 2.

A fuel sensor failed while the tank was being filled up for launch this morning, forcing the space agency to stop the countdown. NASA then decided not to try again this week. Instead, the agency will spend the rest of this year trying to fix the problem.

The next earliest launch opportunity would be Jan. 2. NASA has not decided to roll the shuttle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs yet. Rather, engineers will continue troubleshooting with the vehicle on the pad, for now.

NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier said that while the delay is a disappointment, there is enough margin in the schedule early next year that it will not cause major delays long-term in the space station construction schedule.

Mission Management Team chair LeRoy Cain said that a short-term response team is working on options. The team will return with recommendations by Tuesday and NASA will go forward from there. Among the options are another tanking test, troubleshooting at the pad or rollback to the VAB for repairs.

NASA is still gathering data from the vehicle at the pad, and has not yet completed draining the tank of the propellants loaded during this morning's countdown. That work will last through the afternoon, STS-122 launch director Doug Lyons said.

Cain said that the mission will be re-targeted for the "early January time frame," but it is too early to pinpoint a date.

While Cain said that the mission will be to try to pinpoint the root cause of the sensor problem, but he did not say whether that would be a requirement before Atlantis could be launched. It's too early to speculate, Cain said.

The failure modes were similar on Thursday and today, providing some hope that the data from the two fueling operations will give engineers consistent data that could help them track down a cause. Another tanking test would allow the engineers to try once more to repeat the problem with extra instrumentation on the tank, confirming whatever theories emerge in the coming days.

"We're going to look at everything," Cain said.