Christmas at home will be something of an anticlimax for one group of people this year. The Atlantis astronauts were expecting to celebrate the holidays in space, but the shuttle鈥檚 launch has been delayed until January, thanks to what seems like the curse of the faulty fuel sensors.
Atlantis and its seven astronauts were due to deliver Europe鈥檚 Columbus science laboratory module to the International Space Station, creating Europe鈥檚 first permanent base in space. But erratic fuel sensors scuppered plans to launch Atlantis on 6 December, and its new slot on 9 December.
The sensors operate like dipsticks to determine fuel levels, and are part of a back-up system to cut off the shuttle鈥檚 three hydrogen-burning main engines should the tank run dry earlier than expected, and so help the astronauts to make emergency manoeuvres. It鈥檚 not the first time sensors have plagued shuttle launches. Last September, they caused another Atlantis launch to be aborted, and were also to blame for a Discovery shuttle launch delay in 2005.
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The headache for engineers is that the fuel sensors are quite moody, says NASA spokesman Allard Butel. Since last year鈥檚 problems, the same fuel sensors have worked fine for five other missions, he says. 鈥淲e really don鈥檛 know why.鈥�
To find out, the engineers plan to run a 鈥渢ank test鈥� over the holidays, while the shuttle is filled with liquid hydrogen. 鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 only when you get them out to the pad that you see these problems arise,鈥� Butel explains.
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