Discovery launch put off till February

Washington: The repeatedly delayed final flight of space shuttle Discovery has been pushed back until at least February to allow NASA engineers to conduct tests to discover the cause of cracks in the craft's fuel tank, the space agency said Friday.

NASA has encountered numerous delays over the last month in trying to get Discovery off the ground for its farewell voyage before the shuttle fleet is retired. The mission was initially scheduled for lift-off in early November.The main culprit has been several cracks found on brackets on the external tank. The fear is that the cracks could allow insulating foam to break off and damage the shuttle during lift-off.

In 2003, broken foam damaged the exterior of the shuttle Columbia, causing it to disintegrate while re-entering the atmosphere. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.

Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of space operations, said NASA had not yet been able to find the cause of the cracks through analysis and had reached a point where it needed to conduct tests to pinpoint the problem.

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