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NASA: No shuttle flight until at least November

CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA said Thursday that it is stumped by Discovery's foam loss during liftoff and does not expect another space shuttle to fly until at least late this year.

Bill Gerstenmaier, who is leading the investigation into the foam loss, said the shuttle's fuel tanks will need modifications, which eliminates any chance of launching in September.

The next available launch window would be November, then that would be it until next year because of strict lighting requirements needed to photograph any flyaway foam or shuttle damage.

A 1-pound slab of foam insulation broke off Discovery's external fuel tank two minutes after liftoff on July 26 and, unlike in the case of Columbia, missed the shuttle.

Discovery's redesigned tank also lost smaller but still worrisome pieces of foam in four other areas, including the same spot where a large chunk came loose during Columbia's liftoff in 2003.

"There's no immediate answer or problem that jumps out at us," Gerstenmaier said.

Two days after Discovery's safe landing in California, Gerstenmaier told reporters that of the 4,192 pounds of foam that was on the spacecraft's fuel tank, only about 1.2 pounds came off at undesirable - even potentially dangerous - times.

That was enough, though, to prompt NASA to ground future shuttle flights just one day after Discovery's launch.

Gerstenmaier, the program manager for the international space station, said neither he nor other NASA officials are making excuses for the latest foam loss.

"Frankly," he said, "even the next time we fly the tank, I would expect to see a little bit of foam loss somewhere in the tank. I think it's an extremely difficult engineering problem to solve."

But the bottom line is "we're going to have to really understand why this foam came off."

The space agency's No. 1 worry is the big chunk of foam that came off a hand-sprayed section of the tank where cable trays and pressurization lines need to be insulated. The piece measured as much as 36 inches long and 11 inches wide.

CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA postponed launching a spacecraft to Mars on Thursday after a glitch popped up in the computer software used for monitoring the fueling of the rocket used for liftoff.

The problem appeared with just minutes left until liftoff. The launch was rescheduled for today.

NASA officials say they expect the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to spend at least four years circling Mars.