NASA has delayed Sunday’s launch of space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-122 mission to the International Space Station. The mission was to be Lynchburg native Leland Melvin’s first spaceflight. Shuttle program managers made the decision this morning after a failure occurred in a fuel sensor system while Atlantis’ external fuel tank was being filled.

NASA hoped to have a 1-minute launch window today, but one of the four engine cutoff, or ECO, sensors inside the liquid hydrogen section of the tank gave a false reading. NASA’s current launch criteria require that all four sensors function properly. The sensor system is one of several that protect the
shuttle’s main engines by triggering their shut down if fuel runs unexpectedly low.

NASA has rescheduled the STS-122 flight till no earlier than Jan. 2. We’ll try this again next month.

Being fickle, the gods of technology finally decided to trip me up today. I do Website content management all day, every day, so I know that a) technology is imperfect and b) to be careful. Today, I talked on the phone and cleaned up files. And ended up deleting a bunch of blog posts that I shouldn’t have, including ones on this blog from earlier this week. Mea culpa—or, as they say in the popular nomenclature, my bad.

But fear not. Times-Dispatch science writer A.J. Hostetler’s blog entries will appear here as the space shuttle Atlantis prepares for a second try to take off Saturday. Having frequently interviewed Virginia native Leland Melvin, who will be on board the shuttle, A.J. will provide some interesting background on the man and the mission.

A.J. joined the Times-Dispatch in 1997 as the newspaper’s science writer. She has followed Melvin’s training since his assignment to the STS-122 mission in 2006.

Look here for updates during and after the launch. And click here for stories, video and more of our complete coverage.