Two communications satellites will haveto wait at least one more day for a ride into space after a glitch with theirlaunch pad's water deluge system prevented the liftoff of an Ariane 5 rocket.
"We have decided toput a hold on the launch for this evening," Jean-Yves Le Gall, CEO of the Arianerocket launch firm Arianespace, who announced the scrub at Europe's GuianaSpace Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
The water deluge systemfloods the Ariane 5's launch site at liftoff as a safety measure to suppresssound and fire.
"It seems that wedidn't have a total 100 percent guarantee of this occurring," Le Gallsaid, adding that without such assurances, launch controllers opted to scrubthe space shot until Sunday to be safe.
A heavy-lift Ariane 5rocket was slated to launch India's commercial INSAT-4B satellite [image]and the British Ministry of Defence's Skynet-5A satellite [image]at 5:25 (2225 GMT), though flight controllers called a hold seven minutesbefore liftoff due to the water system glitch. Attempts to work around theproblem within the mission's 33-minute launch window were unsuccessful.
Le Gall said missioncontrollers are now working towards a possible Sunday launch attempt.
The planned space shot isexpected to be the first of up to six launches for Arianespace in 2007.
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