Oxygen leak delays Endeavour’s launch

• Book ID: 104377596
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 128 KB
• Volume: 2002
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1350-4789
• DOI: 10.1016/s1350-4789(02)12032-0

✦ Synopsis

Oxygen leak delays Endeavour's launch

A sudden and puzzling leak in the astronauts' oxygen supply forced NASA to delay the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, which was scheduled for early November 2002, according to a report in the US press.

With just two hours remaining in the countdown, NASA called off the flight to the International Space Station. The report says that the oxygen leak is believed to be somewhere deep in the mid-body of the Shuttle, beneath the payload bay. It is in one of two systems that feed oxygen into the crew's cabin for breathing and into the astronauts' pressure suits during the launch and landing. The concern was that the leak, while small, could worsen. This is the latest in a series of problems that have plagued NASA's shuttles during 2002 -most notably, fuel line cracks grounded the entire fleet all summer. NASA says that the recent problem could be associated with a loose seal or tube fitting.