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CNN Live Today

Atlantis Liftoff Delayed by Leak

Aired April 04, 2002 - 10:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Back here in the United States, the Space Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to lift off later today on a construction mission to the International Space Station. It turns out they discovered a leak, and the launch has been scrubbed for now.

Our John Zarrella is at the Kennedy Space Center to check in with him anyway. John, this is kind of disappointing news.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pretty disappointing, Daryn, and very, very sudden. Right now, they are in the process of saving the vehicle out at launch pad 39b. The Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled, of course, for a trip to the International Space Station. NASA officials tell us it certainly was and is a hazardous condition out there. Of course no astronauts were on board.

They were just in the process of beginning to fuel the giant external tank. They had started at 8:05 a.m. this morning. That's the tank that is filled with half a million gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. At 9:27 this morning, they stopped fueling. They shut down the fueling process.

NASA released just a few minutes ago some fairly dramatic videotape showing the leak. You can see there as they move in on these pictures, right there is the mobile launch platform, and in a line that carries liquid hydrogen from the fuel farm up through those lines and up into the shuttle into the external tank and back around -- it's a vent line there. It looks apparently at this point in a weld, sprung a leak. That is liquid hydrogen pouring out of that weld. So NASA immediately shut it down. You can see very obviously why it was a hazardous condition out there.

It's not likely that this point that they will be able to get Atlantis off the ground tomorrow, although NASA is not saying that yet. They are saying a minimum of a 24-hour delay, but a lot will be determined in the next couple of hours as the engineering teams get out to the launch pad to survey and assess exactly how serious that situation is out there. Again, in the process of saving what is being called hazardous situation. At 2:30 this afternoon Eastern Time, NASA will hold a news conference and update us on the status of the vehicle and of the issue that they are working now. Again, a fairly serious issue out at launch pad 39b, but under control, and there were no astronauts out at the pad at that point in the fueling process -- Daryn. KAGAN: Well and, John, how much information, how forthcoming do you expect NASA officials to be at that briefing, given these new security precautions, when they don't even announce the launch time until 24 hours before?

ZARRELLA: Well, they were very incredibly rapid with getting that video out to us as soon as it happened, turning the video around of what had transpired out at the launch pad. So they will at least give us a thumbnail of exactly what the timeframe is for the next possible launch dates.

Now, the reality is that whole mobile launch platform might have to be brought back to the vehicle assembly building, the shuttle removed from that, put on another mobile launch platform. Then you would be talking about a couple of weeks delay at a minimum, unless they can actually fix this leak out at the pad itself. But, again NASA had been very, very forthcoming with getting this information to us, and I suspect they will give us a fairly reasonable assessment of exactly what the status is when we get into that 2:30 briefing -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. We will look forward to that. John Zarrella in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center -- thank you, sir -- appreciate it.

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