The European Space Agency (ESA) has delayed the launch of a European built spacecraft, LISA Pathfinder, due to a technical glitch in its Vega rocket.
The spacecraft was due to be launched from the agency’s French Guiana launch site on 2 December. Following the delay, the agency said they could go ahead with the launch on 3 December.
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ESA further noted the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft is in a stable and safe condition. The launcher teams are currently busy resolving the technical issue.
ESA said in a statement: "During the final step of VV06 launch campaign, a technical issue on the Vega launch vehicle required additional analysis.
"The launch initially scheduled for 2 December 2015 is postponed."
The spacecraft was designed to study gravitational waves, a phenomena predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
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By GlobalDataDuring the first phase of the launch, LISA Pathfinder was supposed to be placed in a preliminary parking orbit by the Vega rocket. A propulsion module attached to the spacecraft was scheduled to send it to the L1 Lagrange point, located 930,000 miles away from Earth.
The entire mission includes several European space companies and research institutes from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and Nasa.
Arianespace, which handles commercial operations of Vega said the operation received approval after completing a launch readiness review. Before the launch, specialists raised questions about the fourth stage of the launch.
Arianespace programmes vice-president Louis Laurent told Spaceflight Now: "The answer to these questions was not obvious.
"We were quite confident we would find a good answer to this question during the night, and when we reviewed the file this morning it was not convincing.
"The file was not totally clean, and in order to avoid putting too much pressure on the teams, we want to launch, but we want to launch safe.
"We decided to give them an additional 24 hours to consolidate the file."
Image: The launch of LISA Pathfinder has been postponed. Photo: courtesy of ESA.
