Bad weather delays shuttle launch

The BBC News website reports that the latest mission of the US shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed by 24-hours due to bad weather.

With just a few minutes to go, Nasa control called a halt to Tuesday's launch due to rain and thunderstorms at Cape Canaveral.

Some reports say there was a lightning strike only a few miles from the pad.

The 13-day flight will deliver science equipment and is now set to launch at 0110 local (0510 GMT) on Wednesday.

The mission will be the 30th flight dedicated to station maintenance.

The current plan is for a further six sorties to be made to the ISS before America's re-useable spaceship fleet is retired at the end of next year or early in 2011.

Christer Fuglesang, SA0AFS/KE5CGR is part of the mission's strong European focus The latest mission has a strong European focus. The lab equipment was made in Europe, which is represented in Discovery's crew by Swede Christer Fuglesang.

Mr Fuglesang - who is with the European Space Agency (Esa) - will conduct two of the three spacewalks planned during Discovery's stay at the ISS.

Read the full BBC News article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8212950.stm

Our thanks to Mike Terry for alerting us to this item