Technical problems ground Rosetta
The launch of Rosetta, Europe's comet chaser mission, was delayed for a second successive day on 27 February after a final inspection of the Ariane 5 rocket revealed a foam chunk had separated from its main fuel tank. The mission had been scheduled to begin on 26 February, but high winds at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana forced controllers to push the launch back by 24 hours. The European Space Agency (ESA) said that the next launch attempt will be made 'early next week'. The decision to cancel the launch was taken in response to fears that the foam piece could have damaged the craft during blast off. 'A big piece of ice could have formed on the tank when it was being filled with liquid hydrogen,' Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive of Arianespace, told a news conference. 'If this big ice cube, so to speak, detached during the launch it could have damaged the rocket.' He added that the launcher had been returned to its assembly shed to enable engineers to repair it over the weekend. Due to the complex trajectory that Rosetta will follow in order to rendezvous with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the mission has a launch instant rather than the usual launch window. In order to follow the right path, Rosetta must leave Earth at 07:36 GMT. According to current mission plans, this launch instant is available daily until 17 March. A spokesperson for ESA reportedly said that beyond this date, no plans currently exist to carry out a launch.