Space Shuttle Landing Postponed

San Francisco (GaeaTimes.com) According to the latest reports, Space Shuttle Discovery won’t land today. The reason for the postponing is expected to be low lying clouds and scattered showers that made the Mission Control in Florida make their mind not to land the vehicle at the previously planned landing date on April 19, 2010 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA officials had two landing opportunities today but both had to be cancelled as clouds took over and pockets of rain remained though the sky cleared a bit this morning.

There are four chances to land on Tuesday after the space shuttle has stayed for one more day in the orbit after the fifteen days mission duration is completed. Among the four chances to land tomorrow, two chances will be there to land in Florida and two chances for landing at the Edwards Air Force Base in California. There are enough supplies for the seven member crew to stay in orbit till Wednesday. The astronauts are now wrapping up a two week mission to the International Space Station.

Forecasters have said that the weather will be slightly better tomorrow than it was today. The first landing attempt will be at 7:34 am EDT. The name of the mission is STS 131. The primary payload of the Discovery Space Shuttle is Leonardo multi purpose logistics module. It launched on April 5, 2010 at 6:21 EDT from launch pad 39A. The inclination angle will be 51.6 degrees from the altitude of 122 nautical miles.