US shuttle awaits green light for Saturday launch

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) — NASA was to decide Friday whether its Atlantis shuttle can blast off as hoped on Saturday, after a technical glitch delayed its mission to deliver a European space lab to an orbiting station.

"We have done everything we can to maintain the option of flying on Saturday," LeRoy Cain, head of the mission team, told reporters late Thursday.

Mission officials were due to meet at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) and expect to decide later Friday if that will be possible.

The shuttle was supposed to launch from Florida on Thursday with its crew of seven for an 11-day mission to fly the European Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station, hundreds of miles above Earth.

But the launch was postponed hours before lift-off, due to...