NASA has announced that it will delay any new Space Shuttle launches until March, 2005. NASA also said it will launch with Discovery instead of Atlantis. MSNBC.com reports that NASA says it is making progress on tracking down the foam problem but still doesn't know what went wrong.
Gerstenmaier said the foam investigation was making "very good progress," but that it was still unclear exactly what had gone wrong.
In addition to the foam repairs, NASA said the delay would allow it to shift the shuttle order around so that Atlantis would not be forced to make two missions in a row, with a quick turnaround. Now that there's a seven-month delay, Discovery will take on STS-121, the next scheduled mission, and Atlantis will take the one after that, STS-115, currently set for May 2006.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said he did not think the delays would greatly impact the five-year plan to finish building the international space station and then retire the shuttle. "We need to view shuttle missions as a process," he said, instead of focusing on individual missions in isolation.
