William Atkins
Monday, 08 February 2010 01:51
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
The February 7, 2010 early-morning liftoff of the space shuttle
Endeavour was scrubbed nine minutes before its scheduled launch due to a weather system that came in unexpectedly at the Cape. Let's try it again Monday morning!
The 4:39 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), 1939 GMT, launch of NASA mission STS-130 was halted with only nine minutes left in the countdown due to a weather system that wasn’t expected to be as far south as it actually came.
Thick and low clouds prevented the mission from launching, as per weather restrictions for all NASA Space Transportation System (STS) missions of the manned space shuttle.
According to the February 7, 2010
iTWire article
STS-130 ready to send Cupola into space,
“The weather ... is favorable for a launch on early Sunday morning. There is predicted to be partially cloudy skies overhead, with a 0% chance of precipitation and a 0% chance of lightning.”Consequently, the favorable weather predicted for the Kennedy Space Center, in east-central Florida, became unfavorable for the early-morning launch of the space shuttle
Endeavour and its six-member crew.
U.S. astronaut George Zamka, space shuttle commander for the STS-130 mission, was quoted upon hearing of the launch scrub:
"Sometimes you just got to make the call. We understand and we'll give it another try tomorrow night." [NYDailyNews.com: “
NASA scraps Endeavour launch: STS- 130 delayed until Monday due to clouds”]
And, NASA flight controller Mike Leinbach, STS-130 launch director at KSC, had just stated,
"We tried really, really hard to work the weather. It was just too dynamic…. We just were not comfortable with launching a space shuttle tonight." [NYDailyNews.com]
Page two continues with the new launch time for STS-130 on Monday morning.
