14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at NASA say that they were forced to push back the final launch of space shuttle Endeavor by at least a day, due to a spatial “traffic jam” of sorts.
Initially, the last mission that this orbiter was supposed to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) was planned for February 26, 2011. Now, it has been pushed back to at least February 27.
The delay was caused by a mix-up with the European Space Agency (ESA), which is planning to launch its Automated Transfer Vehicle-2, the Johannes Kepler, to the ISS around the same time.
This is the second ATV to be delivered to the station following the Jules Verne, which reached the orbital facility in 2008. It reentered the atmosphere after five months spent docked to the aft port of the Zvezda module.
Johannes Kepler was initially scheduled to launch to the ISS this December, but its launch has recently been delayed to February 15. Mission controllers at NASA do not want to take any chances with Endeavor on its final flight.
The European-built ATV is planned to attach itself to the ISS on February 26, after spending 11 days in pursuit of the space lab in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
ESA is not to be held responsible for this delay, NASA says. The European agency was delayed itself by a misunderstanding with Arianespace, the company that builds the Ariane 5 delivery system the ATV uses to get to LEO.
Endeavor will therefore launch a day after the docking takes place, so as to prevent any difficulties when it approaches the $100 billion station itself.
To make matters even more complex, NASA is also scheduled to launch its Glory climate satellite into orbit, on February 23, Space reports.
The spacecraft will take off aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation-built Taurus delivery system, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California.
As Endeavor will carry out its final mission, it will deliver a $2 billion cosmic ray and dark matter detector to the ISS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
Delays and glitches with this complex device is what caused the shuttle launch to be delayed to 2011. The magnet that made the AMS' core was changed this summer, after experts found it defective.