Storm halts fourth Endeavour launch attempt

Thunderstorms near the Kennedy Space Center forced NASA to postpone Sunday's launch of the space shuttle Endeavour until Monday on a mission to deliver a Japanese-built porch to the International Space Station. "We had some colliding sea breezes," launch director Pete Nickolenko radioed to the Endeavour crew. "We're going to have to declare a scrub for today and try to bring the team back for another attempt tomorrow." The launch was rescheduled for 6:51pm EDT (2251 GMT) on Monday. Meteorologists said there was a 60 per cent chance the weather would not be good enough. It was the fourth delay of Endeavour's flight. Two launch attempts last month were scuttled by hydrogen fuel leaks and a third try on Saturday ended when Nasa ordered checks of the shuttle's electrical systems after lightning struck the mast of the launch pad on Friday. Heavy clouds moved near the Florida launch site less than an hour before Endeavour's scheduled 7:13pm EDT (2313 GMT) liftoff, with the seven astronauts strapped into their seats and the ship loaded with 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of fuel to blast it into orbit. Skies were clear over the shuttle's launch pad, but a few miles west, where Endeavour's commander would land the ship in an emergency, thick black thunderheads gathered, violating Nasa's flight rules. EXPERIMENTS IN SPACE Endeavour's primary cargo is a porch for Japan's $2.4 billion (Dh8.8 billion) Kibo laboratory complex on the space station. The platform can be used to expose experiments to the open environment of space. A small robotic crane will be able to retrieve and service experiments on the platform without time-consuming and potentially dangerous spacewalks by station crewmembers. Nasa launched the first section of the elaborate three-part complex in March 2008 and the second section two months later. The porch is scheduled to be installed during the first of five spacewalks planned during Endeavour's 12-day stay at the outpost, a $100 billion project of 16 nations. The shuttle also is carrying replacement batteries for the solar-powered station and spare parts that will be needed to keep the outpost operational after the US shuttle fleet is retired next year. The space station has been under construction 225 miles (360 km) above Earth for more than a decade. It consists of nearly 26,000 cubic feet (735 cubic metres) of pressurised space, about as much room as a typical four-bedroom house. Nasa plans to complete construction of the station by September 30, 2010, and retire its three space shuttles. The agency then plans to ramp up development of new capsule-style spaceships that can carry astronauts to the moon as well as to the station. One of the Endeavour crew's first tasks will be to transfer astronaut Timothy Kopra to the space station crew. He replaces Japan's Koichi Wakata, who has been aboard the outpost since March. Wakata will return to Earth with commander Mark Polansky and the rest of the Endeavour crew – pilot Doug Hurley, David Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn and Canadian Julie Payette – on July 28. Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the Emirates Business 24|7 daily newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here .