CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida), Dec 9: NASA on Sunday postponed its launch of the shuttle Atlantis until early 2008 after technical problems scuppered the planned delivery of a European laboratory to the International Space Station.

The launch was scrubbed for a fourth time in the early hours after NASA engineers discovered that one of the sensors on the spacecraft’s hydrogen fuel tank had failed during tests, space agency officials said.

“The mission management team has decided to postpone the launch until Jan 2 at the earliest,” NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said.

The Atlantis crew of seven was preparing for an 11-day mission to fly the European Columbus laboratory to the space station, orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth.

The crew includes two European astronauts — Hans Schlegel of Germany and Frenchman Leopold Eyharts. Eyharts was scheduled to stay on the ISS for two and a half months to prepare Columbus for future scientific work.

“We have never had a permanent base in space before and I see that like a first step for Europe in the real spaceflight activities compared to what we had in the past,” said Eyharts, who works for the European Space Agency.

Until now, only the United States and Russia have had their own laboratories at the ISS. The other crew members are Commander Steve Frick and Pilot Alan Poindexter, along with mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim and Stanley Love.

Time was running out in the current launch window for the shuttle to take off from Earth to reach the space station.

Atlantis’s launch, initially scheduled for Thursday, was initially postponed after two of the sensors gave false readings during fueling, requiring engineers to investigate what NASA described as a very complex problem.

With Columbus, Europe hopes to become an integral part of the only functioning orbital outpost, whose scientific experiments with microgravity are considered essential to prepare humans for long-term life and work in space and subsequent journeys towards Mars and beyond.—AFP