› Larger image On Launch Pad 17-A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the first half of the fairing is installed around the Phoenix spacecraft. Image credit: NASA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Friday's launch of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander
aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket has been postponed 24
hours. The two available launch times on Saturday, Aug. 4, are 2:26:34
and 3:02:59 a.m. Pacific Time (5:26:34 a.m. and 6:02:59 a.m. Eastern Time).
Due to a forecast for severe weather around the Kennedy Space Center launch
pad on Tuesday afternoon, fueling of the second stage will not be completed
Tuesday afternoon. While this is expected to be done Wednesday morning,
there is insufficient contingency time in the schedule to move forward with
the planned Friday launch.
The pre-launch news conference has been rescheduled to Thursday, Aug. 2, at
11 a.m. Pacific Time (2 p.m. Eastern Time) at the NASA press site at Kennedy
Space Center. All other planned events for the news media will occur at the
same times 24 hours later. NASA TV and Web coverage for launch will begin at
12:30 a.m. Pacific Time (3:30 a.m. Eastern Time) on Saturday. For more information
about NASA TV, streaming video, and downlink and schedule information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson,
with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin
Space Systems in Denver. International contributions are provided by the Canadian
Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the University of Copenhagen,
Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
