By Xinhua
Washington : With a trouble shooting plan in hand, NASA will begin to test the erratic fuel sensors which had halted the launch of space shuttle Atlantis, a top NASA official announced Tuesday at a teleconference.
The test work is tentatively planned for Dec. 18, said Wayne Hale, NASA’s Space Shuttle Program Manager. Technicians and engineers plan to test the sensor system onboard Atlantis by pumping super-cold liquid hydrogen into the external fuel tank.
It will be conducted at the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Atlantis remains poised for launch.
Hale said additional instruments will be used during the test to pinpoint the problem that led to false readings during two previous countdown attempts for Atlantis on Dec. 6 and Dec. 9.
The companies that built the pieces of the space shuttle are conducting tests at other facilities to help determine a cause, Hale said.
“This is part of broad-ranging effort,” he said.
Currently, the next launch opportunity for the space shuttle is no earlier than Jan. 2, 2008, at 5:41 a.m. EST (1041 GMT) from Kennedy Space Center.