A series of rumbling thunderstorms have been sweeping over Florida's Space Coast tonight, forcing NASA to cancel plans to fuel shuttle Endeavour for a 5:40 a.m. launch attempt early Wednesday.
NASA scrubbed Endeavour's second launch attempt around 10:30 p.m.The postponement will bump the shuttle mission to mid-July so the way can be cleared for the time-critical launch of a moon-mapping mission that is the first precursor to returning American astronauts to the moon by 2020.
Coming up as early as Thursday: the launch of an Atlas V rocket and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The orbiter will scout sites for astronaut encampments and a piggyback payload will make a suicide dive into the south pole of the moon so a spacecraft following it can determine if there is water ice in the cloud created by the crash.
NASA is targeting the launch for 5:12 p.m. Thursday. There also will be one-second launch windows at 5:22 p.m. and 5:32 p.m.
NASA will have opportunities to launch the mission Friday and Saturday before the agency would have to delay the mission until June 30. That's the next time Earth and the moon align properly for the trajectory the two satellites will be flying.
NASA tried to launch Endeavour last Saturday but a gaseous hydrogen leak during fuel-loading operations forced a scrub.
NASA is facing a period between June 21 through July 10 when sun angles on the International Space Station would be such that the outpost could not generate enough power, or dispel enough heat, to support a docked shuttle mission.
NASA officials said earlier this week that July 11 would be the next shuttle launch opportunity.
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