KRWG News –
UPHAM, N.M. (KRWG) The annual New Mexico Space Grant Consortium's student launch was set to go off early Friday from Spaceport America.
Officials say the launch has now been delayed until May 20th because of a hardware problem with the rocket's parachute system. Officials say a drop test was successful, but part of the flight hardware became entangled during recovery and was damaged.
The project's mission requires the safe return of the students' experiments so the hardware has to be fixed.
A total of 27 onboard experiments were scheduled to be launched aboard the SL-5 rocket. The experiments involve 115 students from Albuquerque and northern New Mexico.
Space Grant Consortium director Patricia Hynes says a lot of planning and effort has gone into the launch, and she remains optimistic despite the delay.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. krwg