Risky Weather Delays Launch of Shuttle : Discovery Mission to Start Dormant Satellite Is Reset for Today

A nasty cloud hovered over the space shuttle Discovery just long enough Saturday to force the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to scrub the launch.

Blastoff was rescheduled for today at 4:57 a.m. PDT.

The cloud moved into the launch pad area out of a reasonably clear sky, creating “dynamic weather conditions too close to call,” a NASA spokesman said. The agency’s guidelines prohibit launching when there is any chance of lightning hitting the shuttle, or when overhead clouds contain enough water droplets to damage the craft’s heat-protective tiles during ascent.

20th Shuttle Flight

“We’ll get it tomorrow,” shuttle commander Joe Engle, 53, said after his 3 1/2-hour wait aboard the craft Saturday.

During the flight, which will be the 20th of the shuttle program, two astronauts are to attempt later this week to revive a dormant satellite. The five-man crew will also deploy three communications satellites before the astronauts try to “hot-wire” the errant Hughes Communications satellite, which failed to activate itself after it was released from the Discovery’s cargo bay last April.

James D. van Hoften, 41, and William F. Fisher, 39, will make the attempt to save the satellite. Richard O. Covey, 39, is the pilot, and John M. Lounge, 39, is the fifth member of the crew.

The scrubbing of the launch Saturday could delay the landing at Edwards Air Force Base by one day, to Labor Day, Sept. 2, but NASA is considering tightening the schedule aboard the craft and reducing the flight by a day. That decision will be made after the launch, a NASA spokesman said.