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Tuesday's launch of Discovery to go ahead as planned
Space shuttle "Discovery" astronauts (R to L) Eileen Collins, James Kelly, Soichi Noguchi, Stephen Robinson, Wendy Lawrence, Charles Camarda and Andrew Thomas depart their crew quarters for the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 26, 2005. CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA, the United States, July 26 (Xinhuanet) --The launch of shuttle Discovery is set to go ahead as planned on Tuesday morning, as pre-departure tests found no sensor problem similar to what has blocked the first launch attempt on July 13. All sensors performed well, said Michael Rein, chief of the news service at the Kennedy Space Center, in an email to all mediahere to cover the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disasterin Feb. 2003, during which the shuttle exploded on its way back home and killed all of its seven astronauts aboard. According to Rein, the only concern of the US space agency now is weather. However, NASA's weather officer has forecast that the possibility of a favorable weather for launch is 80 percent on Tuesday morning. "Let's just hope the weather holds," said Rein. The shuttle is scheduled for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:39 a.m. (1439 GMT). US First Lady Laura Bush was expected to attend.
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