Delta 4 Heavy Launch Slips to January

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket carrying a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload won't launch until next year, according to the NRO.

The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 37, which had been targeted for next Tuesday, is now anticipated in mid- to late-January.

Executives decided to put off a launch this month during a meeting Monday that reviewed technical and personnel issues. No target date has been set yet.

NRO spokesman Rick Oborn said the agency's spacecraft needed more work.

"There's a need for us to do some more work on our part of this launch," he said. "It's not a booster thing at this point."

Once planned for late July, the launch slipped to Nov. 16 and then Dec. 16 before the latest delay.

The shift to January restores to 13 the number of ULA launches planned from Cape Canaveral next year. Last week, NASA delayed until 2011 the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which had been planned for next October.

ULA has five more launches planned next year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

IMAGE NOTE: Click on the image above twice to fully enlarge it. It shows the first Delta 4 Heavy rocket sitting on the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 37 in October 2004, awaiting its December inaugural launch. Photo credit: Boeing.