NASA on Friday delayed for two months the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, over concerns that ice or pieces of insulating foam could break off and damage the orbiter, as in the deadly 2003 Columbia disaster. "We are here to let you know officially that we will be moving the shuttle Discovery's return to flight launch window, or launch, from the May-to-early-June window to the mid-July window," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at a press conference.
Discovery, which was wheeled to its launch platform earlier this month at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, had been scheduled to blast off on a mission to the orbiting International Space Station between May 15 and June 3.
Griffin said NASA had a number of "small fixes" it wanted to make before relaunching the space shuttle, including a review of what he described as "debris issues."
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