Day After Launch Scrub, Space Agency Criticized For Speeding Preps

With the shuttle program under the world's microscope as it returns to flight, why did NASA engineers start the countdown without checking the external fuel tank’s sensors? Those sensors were already pegged as problematic when NASA delayed the launch in April. The answer: engineers said they were comfortable that the issue was nothing more than an “unexplained anomaly.”

"We became comfortable as a group, as a management team, that this was an acceptable posture to go fly in," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said, quoted by the Associated Press, "and we also knew that if something were to happen during a launch countdown, we would do this test and we would find it. And guess what? We did the test, we found something and we stopped. We took no risk. We're not flying with this."

The fuel depletion sensor failure that stopped Wednesday’s launch was one of two issues that caused NASA officials some measure of embarrassment during the launch scrub. Earlier, a plastic windowpane simply fell out of the space vehicle, damaging some of Discovery’s sensitive thermal tiles.

Discovery will not launch until at least Saturday -- a delay that could run much longer. At this point, it’s not clear whether the shuttle can be repaired on the pad or will have to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building.

FMI: www.nasa.gov