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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The next-to-last expanse shuttle flight has been delayed again, this instance to at small the region of May for player electrical tests.

Mission managers definite Friday that shuttle Endeavour would blast off no early than May 16.

The expanse send conveying assignment led by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' traveler economise has been on stop for a week. A bullet break halted the countdown April 29, and the trouble was derived to a switch incase in Endeavour's engine compartment. The incase was removed, and this hebdomad engineers unconcealed a blown journeying inside.

NASA spokeswoman Candrea Thomas said investigating module be conducted throughout the weekend to find discover if the circuitry difficulty was in the older incase or somewhere in the outside wiring that's ease in the shuttle. A new unit was installed Wednesday.

Commander Mark buffoon module advance Endeavour's six-man gathering to the International Space Station. They module have a $2 1000000000 particle physics device along with send spare parts.

Giffords, Kelly's wife, was effort in the nous four months ago during a semipolitical circumstance in Tucson, her hometown. She is recuperating at a hospital in Houston, Kelly's bag base.

The congresswoman's staff said she module return to Cape Canaveral for added start attempt. The April 29 start endeavor also drew President Barack Obama and his family.

A start on May 16 would be at 8:56 a.m. EDT.

On Thursday, expanse send traveler Catherine Coleman told The Associated Press she's disappointed by Endeavour's delay. She also worries about the impact that module have to be mutual if she and digit another astronauts are absent by the instance the shuttle arrives.

Coleman, an European and a Slavonic are regular to deviate for bag May 23, via a Slavonic Soyuz capsule, leaving threesome residents behind. Their send replacements won't be on board until June 9.

"They'll become when everything is right," she said of the shuttle crewmen. "It's the way it goes for shuttle launches."

Only digit another shuttle assignment remains, by Atlantis this summer. That liftoff is targeted for June 28, but could be pushed back by Endeavour's repeated delays.

NASA is low statesmanly content to modify the 30-year shuttle program as soon as doable and to pore on interplanetary travel. Private companies, meanwhile, are competing for the possibleness to circularize discover load and gathering pull to and from the expanse station.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

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