Discovery Launch Postponed; Space Shuttle Launch On For Wednesday

Weather forecast for the scheduled early Tuesday morning Discovery launch was nearly perfect for most of the launch countdown on Monday. Late Monday night, weather conditions became less favorable and NASA was forced to do a last minute decision to postpone the launch. Now the space shuttle launch is scheduled for early Wednesday morning.

With no technical issues the only concern NASA had during Monday was if storms would develop near the launch pad around the time they were planning to fill the external fuel tanks Monday afternoon. The storms never developed and the fuel tanks were filled with no problems. Around 7 pm ET the weather forecast was still the 80% for favorable conditions for the scheduled 1:36 am ET launch time. It appeared this launch was going to be picture perfect.

Around 10 pm ET, the crew began to get strapped into their seats. All the crew could do was to wait for the space shuttle launch and their flight to the International Space Station. The countdown continued as scheduled.

Things soon changed. Around 11:40 with the crew strapped into their seats, the hatch was closed. Weather forecast had quickly worsened to only a 40% chance of favorable conditions for the scheduled Discovery launch. NASA was watching the storms that were developing closing and hoping the conditions would improve enough to be able to proceed with the space shuttle launch to occur.

About an hour later conditions were not improving. With rain and storms in the area, weather conditions had developed to be not acceptable for liftoff. NASA and the Discovery crew continued to watch, wait and hope for an improvement in the weather.

Conditions did not improve enough for the space shuttle Discovery to safely launch. At 1:28 the space shuttle launch was postponed for the poor weather.

Delays are not new to NASA. Shuttle Endeavour’s launch last month was delayed several times due to bad weather.

Jose Hernandez, astronaut on this Discovery mission, will be tweeting from space on his first flight. His twitter status this morning reads: “Well back a crew quarters! Try again tomorrow at 1:10:22 am!”

Discovery is scheduled for a 13 day space flight. The shuttle will deliver supplies and equipment to the space station. NASA has four opportunities between August 25 and August 30th for the Discovery launch. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the space shuttle launch will occur early Wednesday morning.

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