NASA plans to launch Endeavour tomorrow

CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida)(AFP) - NASA said Sunday it was aiming for a June 17 launch for the US space shuttle Endeavour after the mission to the International Space Station was postponed over a hydrogen leak.
Shuttle launch director Pete Nickolenko said the root cause of the leak in Endeavours external fuel tank had not yet been determined but that the team was confident that repair procedures for a similar leak on space shuttle Discovery in March would work for the current mission.
Technicians at NASAs Kennedy Space Center were expected to complete the repairs by 6:00 am (1000 GMT) Monday.
The leak in one of Endeavours venting systems was detected early Saturday just hours before the shuttles planned launch. The system is used to carry excess hydrogen safely away from the launch pad.
Nickolenko said that technicians had emptied Endeavours external tank, which contains some two million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, in order to provide a safe environment for the technicians.
Endeavours new target blast-off date of Wednesday may present a conflict as NASA has scheduled a liftoff on the same day for the Lunar crater observation and sensing satellite (LRO/LCROSS). Space shuttle deputy program manager LeRoy Cain told reporters a decision is to be made on Monday about which mission would be prioritized.
He stressed that in order for the shuttle to launch on Wednesday, everything has to continue to go well, we need to have no breakage on the shuttle processing side ... we need to have not too much bad weather that keeps us from doing work on the pad and we need to have no other issues.
Endeavour, Cain said, was in great shape and not experiencing any other issues. His comments followed a two-hour meeting by shuttle managers to evaluate repairs on the shuttle and discuss the next launch attempt. Should the moon probe launch first on the 17th, the shuttle would only have one more launch opportunity this month, on Saturday the 20th.
If the shuttle blasts off on Wednesday, the moon probe would have two more launch opportunities on Friday or Saturday, and possibly another on Thursday.
If Endeavour cannot launch in June, the next available blast-off date would July 11 at the earliest, which Cain said we could certainly tolerate.
When Endeavour finally lifts off, it will be the 32nd mission to the ISS, which orbits 350 kilometers (220 miles) above Earth, and the last of three missions to assemble the Japanese Kibo laboratory aboard the orbiting space station.