Shuttle Discovery Launch on Wednesday Scrubbed

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon the process to fill the fuel tanks began for the rescheduled Discovery launch. NASA and the crew of space shuttle Discovery were feeling like they had done this all before. Astronaut Jose Hernandez tweeted “Going for a nice run. Looks like todays weather will cooperate for tonight's 1:10 a.m EDT launch! Feels like Ground Hog Day!”

The crews began doing the same steps they did Monday afternoon when they received the go ahead to begin fueling the external tanks in preparation for the second attempt of Discovery’s launch. They will have to wait for a third attempt now.

At 3 pm ET Tuesday, NASA held a meeting to discuss if they would give the go ahead to begin fueling the external tanks with the 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The concern at that time was if weather would interfere with the space shuttle launch that was scheduled for Wednesday morning like it did with the Tuesday morning launch attempt.

Storms near the Kennedy Space Center prevented Tuesday morning’s shuttle Discovery’s launch. The weather was appearing to be cooperative with a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for Wednesday’s launch time. Weather would not be the reason for the shuttle launch to be postponed this time.

Discovery’s mission is to carry supplies, the COLBERT treadmill and astronaut Nicole Stott on its 13 day flight. Stott is scheduled to be stationed on the space station till November.

The NASA launch team crew is analyzing the problem with the fill-and-drain value. There has not been any date or time set for the next attempt of the space shuttle Discovery’s launch. The day ended up not being quite like Ground Hog Day for the seven crew members of Discovery, but they will have to wait at least another day before they head into space.