CAPE CANAVERAL, July 2: Nasa postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery on Sunday for the second day in a row because of thunderstorms near the Florida launch site.

Nasa managers said they would try again on Tuesday to launch a mission whose failure could ground the US shuttle fleet permanently and leave the International Space Station unfinished.

Bad weather forced Nasa to call off the first attempt on Saturday to launch the second shuttle mission since the destruction of the shuttle Columbia and the deaths of seven crew members in 2003, an accident triggered by insulating foam that fell off the spacecraft’s fuel tank.

Nasa has since spent $1.3 billion on repairs and upgrades to the shuttle.

Discovery’s mission was meant to test repairs to the fuel tank, carry much-needed equipment and supplies to the space station and make repairs to the $100 billion orbiting outpost.—Reuters