NASA Space Shuttle Discovery Launch Scrubbed for Fourth Time

By: Bill Waters
11/05/2010 10:02 AM ET

A hydrogen leak forced NASA on Friday to delay the launch of the space shuttle Discovery for a fourth time this week, pushing back the blast-off at least until Monday.

The postponement of Discovery’s 39th and final flight was announced about six hours before the scheduled 3:04 p.m. EDT launch on a cargo mission to the International Space Station.

As liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen were flowing into the orbiter’s fuel tank, a hydrogen leak developed in a venting system between the shuttle and the launch pad.

“We are not going to be able to launch shuttle Discovery on its final mission today,” said NASA commentator Allard Beutel.

He said the flight would be delayed at least until Monday.

The shuttle is carrying a storage pod, spare parts and supplies for the space station, as well as a prototype humanoid robot flying as a technology demonstration project.

Managers called off Thursday’s launch attempt because of bad weather around the Kennedy Space Center in central Florida. The launch had originally been set for Monday but was delayed twice by other technical glitches.

Discovery’s flight is among the last planned for the space shuttle program, which is ending next year to free up money to develop new spaceships and rockets that can travel to asteroids and eventually Mars, places beyond the shuttles’ range.

NASA hopes to bolster commercial options for flying astronauts to the space station. Once the shuttles are retired, only Russia will have spaceships that can fly people to the space station.

China, the only other country that has flown humans in space, is not a member of the 16-nation International Space Station partnership.

The station, which cost about $100 billion, has been under construction 220 miles above Earth since 1998.

After Discovery’s flight, NASA plans to fly a $2 billion particle detector, known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, to be installed outside the station. The agency also hopes to run a final load of cargo to the outpost next summer.

The U.S. Congress approved the extra flight, estimated to cost about $600 million, but did not appropriate the funds before adjourning for Tuesday’s midterm elections.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Tom Brown and Bill Trott)