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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Storms forced NASA to scrub a fifth attempt to launch the shuttle Endeavour on Monday, but the space agency said it would try again on Wednesday evening.
Officials set the new launch time for 6:03 pm (2203 GMT), hoping conditions would cooperate better on Wednesday and allow them to finally send Endeavour's seven-person crew to the International Space Station (ISS).
"Again, the vehicle and our team were ready, but the weather has just bitten us again with the lightning within 20 nautical miles," said launch director Pete Nickolenko shortly after the cancellation was announced.
The shuttle had been scheduled for lift-off at 6:51 pm (2251 GMT), and the crew were in place and undergoing final preparations when the scrub was announced about 11 minutes prior to launch.
Forecasters said unsettled weather, including nearby late-day thunderstorms, forced the US space agency to abort the countdown.
"That's the nature of our business," said shuttle commander Mark Polansky. "When the time is right, we'll be here and we'll be ready."
NASA weather experts gave a more favourable early outlook for Wednesday, with only a 40 per cent chance of weather conditions scrapping the lift-off.
Lift-off has been cancelled three times since Saturday because of weather problems, and two earlier attempts were aborted after leakages in the fuelling system were detected.
NASA conducted repair work that they hoped would pave the way for the launch of the shuttle, scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS to complete the assembly of the Japanese Kibo laboratory.
The mission for Endeavour's crew of six Americans and one Canadian is to install a platform on the ISS for astronauts to conduct experiments in the vacuum of space, 350 kilometers (220 miles) above Earth's surface.
So far, uncooperative weather has been the recurring challenge in efforts to launch Endeavour with lightning strikes forcing Saturday's scrubbed launch.
A dramatic Friday night storm that produced at least 11 lightning strikes around the shuttle's pad prompted NASA to postpone the Saturday attempt until engineers could check for damage.
After the shuttle was cleared by engineers, the crew boarded Endeavour Sunday, only to have gathering storms force a new cancellation.
Liftoff was delayed twice before, when potentially hazardous fuel leaks were discovered, apparently caused by a misaligned plate linking a hydrogen gas vent line with the external fuel tank.
Weather proved a thorn in NASA's side on its previous shuttle mission, in May, when Atlantis's return to earth was postponed by three days as stormy conditions forced the shuttle to touch down at its alternative landing spot, in California.
The crew of the Endeavour mission includes Canadian Julie Payette, an electrical and information engineer, the only woman on board, who has been in space before.
Two other members of the crew, including shuttle commander Polansky, have been into space previously, while four of the astronauts will be on their maiden space voyage.
American aerospace engineer Tim Kopra, 46, will replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, spending several months aboard the floating space station.
He would be the latest addition to the permanent crew of the ISS, which is a joint collaboration between 16 different countries.
- AFP/yb
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