NASA officials today will hold a 10:30 a.m. briefing at Kennedy Space Center to update the status of shuttle Discovery's launch, which could officially be reset for 7:43 p.m. EDT Sunday. You can watch the briefing live here by clicking on the NASA TV image at right to launch a NASA TV viewer.
Work began this morning to replace a leaking hydrogen valve, shown above, that forced a scrub of Wednesday's launch attempt.
The valve vents hydrogen gas from the shuttle's orange external tank through a line in the launch tower to flares that burn it off.
A Sunday shuttle launch attempt would mean the postponement until next week of Saturday's planned rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is set to deliver the second of three advanced military communications satellites to orbit. An Air Force weather forecast shows an 80-percent chance conditions favorable for an Atlas liftoff Saturday and Sunday.
The Air Force has not released an updated shuttle weather forecast today. Launch criteria for the two vehicles are not the same.
If it launches Sunday, Discovery's planned 14-day mission to the International Space Station would be shortened to 13 days, with three spacewalks instead of four.
NASA detected the hydrogen gas leak during fueling of the 15-story external tank Wednesday. The leak created a risk of an explosion at KSC's pad 39A.
The tank had to be drained and made safe for workers to access the valve area, a process that took about a day.
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