Shuttle's Computers Would Misread New Year

Remember when many predicted the world would grind to a halt, since our computers would not recognize the year 2000? Of course, that didn't happen... but NASA is afraid a similar problem may delay the planned December launch of the space shuttle Discovery.

The issue lies in the computers onboard the orbiter. The space agency says Discovery's systems would not recognize the transition to the year 2007. Instead, those computers would read January 1, 2007 as the 366th day of 2006... throwing them out of whack with ground-based systems at NASA.

That's not a problem if Discovery launches on its 12-day mission on December 7, as currently planned... but if the launch is delayed past December 18, NASA will need to hold off until next year to send the orbiter to the International Space Station. Engineers don't want the orbiter in space over the New Year.

Of course, a delay with Discovery's launch would complicate NASA's plans to complete at least 14 more shuttle flights before the orbiters are retired in 2010

We'll just have to see how this plays out... oh, and that computer glitch we're talking about? NASA has been working on it since 2003... or was that 2002?

FMI: www.nasa.gov