NASA delays shuttle launch till July
Officials cite concern over ice formations before launch
 |  Discovery is now scheduled for launch in July. |
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 NASA announces Discovery launch delay.
 Shuttle Discovery moved to assembly building.
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(CNN) -- NASA delayed the launch window of space shuttle Discovery -- set to be the first shuttle to fly since the 2003 Columbia disaster -- from late May to at least July.
The postponement allows engineers to take steps to prevent ice from potentially damaging the shuttle on takeoff.
The Associated Press reported NASA's prime area of concern is a liquid oxygen line on the lower half of the fuel tank. Its expansion joints have produced ice in the past, the AP said.
During the fateful launch of Columbia in 2003, a piece of fuel-tank foam insulation hit the shuttle's wing and was blamed for creating a hole. That led to the shuttle's disintegration during re-entry from space into Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003. All seven astronauts aboard died.
Since then, the shuttle fleet has remained grounded and astronauts have had to use Russia's space program to get to the international space station.
NASA has used its two-year hiatus to revamp how the tank's insulating foam is applied and replace some areas of suspect foam. Engineers also have been studying the threat of ice formations and the possibility they could break off and damage the ship.
"We're going to a very direct method of putting a heater in the specific [external fuel tank] area where the ice is forming," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told CNN. (Full interview)
Fuel tanks already under production are being built with heaters, but those new designs "were not fully approved" in time for the creation of Discovery's tank, said Griffin, "so we elected to go forward in the flow." But, he said, recent tests left reason for concern about ice.
Modifications on the Discovery have mitigated ice formation "by about 70 percent," said Griffin. "The problem is that remaining 30 percent. And we've just elected at this time to say, 'Time to call a halt, fix it, and we'll take the six-week delay.'"
In addition, NASA had received additional data that required further analysis, said Griffin. The extra time would allow engineers "to make absolutely sure, as sure as we could be, that, in the common phrase, 'All the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed,'" Griffin said.
"If we had tried to launch in May, we simply wouldn't have had the time to analyze all that data as fully as we would like ... Part of what that six weeks is buying us is some additional time to go through some really very late-breaking information that we need to look at to certify the safety of the orbiter."
'We're going to return...not rush to flight'
Discovery was originally scheduled to take off May 15, but last week the date was delayed to May 22. Now the launch will have to go off between July 13 and 31 for conditions to be favorable.
The launch window is limited because NASA has committed to daytime launches for the next two missions. This way upgraded cameras can use ideal lighting conditions to capture the shuttle as it climbs into orbit.
"We're going to return to flight. We're not going to rush to flight," said Griffin, who took over as NASA's boss on April 14.
"And we want it to be right, so we're doing what we need to do to ensure that."
He told CNN that in his brief time as administrator, he has seen the culture of NASA improving and that people from different parts of the agency are working together well.
"We are recovering from a major accident here, a huge national tragedy," he added. "Putting people into space is still not so routine that we can do it blithely."
CNN's Miles O'Brien contributed to this report.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
