Space shuttle Discovery and the STS-119 crew will try again for a successful launch at 7:43 p.m. EDT Sunday. A leak in a hydrogen fuel line forced a scrub of tonight's launch on a space station upgrade mission.
The delay means that the mission will be shorter, and will include three spacewalks instead of four. The shuttle must be launched by Tuesday or else wait until a Russian Soyuz mission to deliver new crew members to the space station is complete.
If launch gets delayed to Monday or Tuesday, the length of the mision and the number of spacewalks would be curtailed even more. It's crucial that Discovery conclude its mission at the International Space Station before Soyuz arrives, as the station can't support two vehicles and three crews at the same time.
Discovery's external tank was almost completely filled when the launch had to be scrubbed. Managers had hoped to do a 24-hour turnaround and launch tomorrow night, but repairs at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad will take longer than one day.
Image credit/NASA
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