CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA decided on Monday it would delay this week's planned launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and the laboratory module it was supposed to deliver to the International Space Station until February.

The space agency had planned to launch Atlantis on Friday, but mission managers grew worried about the solid-fuel booster rockets strapped to either side of the large, external fuel tank mounted on the shuttle's back during liftoff.

Two minutes after liftoff, explosives are supposed to separate the booster rockets from the shuttle, but a bad electrical connection on the shuttle Endeavor when it launched last November could have prevented that separation had a backup system not done the job.

If a booster rocket did not separate, both the shuttle and its crew would be in grave danger, officials said.

The identical cables on Atlantis were X-rayed before the shuttle was rolled to its launch pad and no problems were found. But engineers, while testing another system, found that subjecting the cables to vibrations similar to those experienced at liftoff did occasionally cause a failure.

NASA spokesman George Diller said Atlantis would be rolled back to the vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center for further tests. Launch will not be rescheduled before February 6.

The $1.4 billion laboratory module in the shuttle's payload bay is among the most critical pieces of hardware destined for the orbiting space station, which is expected to remain under construction until 2006.

The $60 billion station is a joint project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

(Reuter)