Disappointment felt as Mars launch delayed again

Professor Steven Squyres leads a science team meeting June 23 to discuss the launch delay for the second Mars rover. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Kate Becker

COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- There were cries of disappointment from Cornell alumni but shrugs of resignation from scientists when NASA announced June 22 that the launch of the second Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, had been delayed by at least two days, until Saturday, June 28, at 11:56 p.m. Eastern time. A second launch time will be available at 12:37 a.m. on June 29.

The Delta II rocket carrying the rover and its science instruments had been due to launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early this morning, June 26. The delay, caused by problems with the rocket's cork insulation, was the second announced by NASA. "Like Sammy Sosa, we were done in by the the cork," said Steven Squyres, Cornell professor of astronomy and the principal investigator for the Athena suite of science instruments carried by Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, which was launched June 10.

At midday on June 25, Squyres told Cornell alumni in Florida for the launch that he had been informed by Boeing, the maker of the Delta II rocket, that barring a surprise Opportunity is definitely going on Saturday. The only remaining concern, Squyres said, is the weather. Forecasts, he said, predict a 40 percent chance that the weather will prevent the launch on Saturday night.

The delay was announced after the flight readiness review on June 22. According to NASA, the launch team elected to remove and replace a band of protective cork insulation on the Delta rocket's first stage, below the forward attach points of the strap-on solid rocket boosters.

Mission scientists, many of whom are in Florida with their families, said they were resigned to the delay. "No, this isn't serious," Squyres said. "In the rocket business, this sort of thing is quite normal." Athena team member James Bell, assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell, said, "If the project has to choose between inconveniencing a lot of people and a safe launch, I'll take a safe launch."

Expressing the hope that he can stay around long enough to see the launch, Eric De Jong of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., the Mars mission's manager, said: "I would have loved to be here for it. I've never seen a night launch. But mostly I just hope it happens."

The delay was announced only a short time after Athena team members had presented Squyres with a unique gift as thanks for his leadership: a World War II bomber pilot watch altered to record Martian days, or sols, instead of Earth days. A sol is 24 hours and 38 minutes. The watch was presented by team member Jeff Moersch, Squyres' former graduate student and now assistant professor at the University of Tennessee.

But the delay was a letdown to the 100 or so Cornell alumni who are in Florida to witness the launch and to take part in festivities to celebrate Cornell's connection with the latest Mars exploration mission. "People are obviously disappointed," said Karen Weinreich '89, director of alumni affairs and development for the Southeast Regional Office. However, she said, few are canceling their plans. She recalled one alumnus as saying, "If you have a 50-50 chance of seeing something so spectacular, you have to take it."

Alumni attended a dinner Monday evening and a Tuesday night banquet at the Kennedy Space Center's Saturn V Center, at which Squyres was the speaker.

For some alums, the delay is actually good news. Unable to make the June 26 launch, they now are hopeful about seeing Opportunity lift off Saturday.

Live coverage of the launch can be seen on the Internet at http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/nasadirect/index.htm.