Don Savage                                                                                 June 28, 2002
NASA Headquarters
202/358-1727

George H. Diller 
Kennedy Space Center
321/867-2468

Mike Buckley
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
240/228-7536

Larry Salazar
The Boeing Company
714/343-8030

KSC Release No. 66-02

CONTOUR LAUNCH POSTPONED

The launch of NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket has been postponed to no earlier than Wednesday, July 3. During installation of the launch vehicle fairing around the spacecraft on Thursday, possible particulate contamination was observed on the top solar array panel. As a precautionary measure, this particulate is being analyzed to determine its composition and what further action, if any, is necessary. 

Should launch occur on July 3, the launch time would be 2:47:41 a.m. EDT. The prelaunch press conference would be held on Monday, July 1, at 1 p.m. EDT. The CONTOUR launch period extends until July 25 without affecting the mission. 

If further attention to the spacecraft will be required, additional status will be released on Monday.

The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Newsroom offers an electronic subscription service for status reports and news releases issued from KSC. There are two possible ways to subscribe.  You may send a blank e-mail message to ksc-news_release-subscribe@kscnews.ksc.nasa.gov or follow the instruction on the Web site at http://kscnews.ksc.nasa.gov. The system will confirm the request via e-mail.