I can hear the ultrasonic twittering of the moonbats already: Problem May Delay Launch Of Mission To Pluto
The space probe called New Horizons is all set for a three-billion-mile, nine-year journey to Pluto. But the Atlas-5 rocket carrying the probe is not ready for liftoff.
Engineers think a propellant tank might be flawed, and they haven’t yet determined how to fix it.
“Well, we really don’t have those details,” said Dwayne Brown, of NASA.
The new problem comes on top of an effort to repair hurricane damage, which had already thrown the launch effort behind schedule.
It’s a little less serious and a little more serious than that. The launch, if not completed by 1/11/06, was going to be delayed anyway because of the return of Stardust on 1/15, and the weather in Fla. is a bit notorious in January.
But launching early in the 35 day window is really, really desirable in this case, because of the Jupiter-encounter boost.