NASA officials decided last night to delay the next shuttle flight until September 2004 at the earliest, saying they need time to make changes and repairs prompted by the probe of the Columbia disaster.
This is at least the third postponement of the shuttle fleet's estimated return to flight since shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas during re-entry on Feb. 1, killing all seven astronauts. The three remaining shuttles have been grounded since then. The new launch window is from September 12th to October 10, 2004.
Soon after the accident, NASA geared up for a possible launch as early as September 2003, later moving that to a window from March 11 to April 6 of next year, driven in part by a decision to launch only during daylight hours to ease the taking of high-resolution pictures of the liftoff.
Investigators found falling foam insulation from the Columbia's external tank gashed the spacecraft's left wing soon after launch, letting superheated gas penetrate the ship as it re-entered the atmosphere and ultimately tearing it apart.