NASA Delays Final Flight of Discovery Until February

NASA is not taking any chances with the 26-year-old Space Shuttle Discovery, which has been in orbit 38 times and is the senior citizen of the U.S. space program. The agency on Dec. 3 postponed for the third time what was to be the final launch of Discovery until after the holidays. It originally was supposed to go Nov. 5 but was delayed until Nov. 30, again until Dec. 17, and now until next year. The craft is now scheduled to fly no earlier than Feb. 3, 2011, to enable more testing on repairs that were made to cracked supports on the shuttle's fuel tank and to other mechanical problems that included a hydrogen leak. More

(Source: eWeek - Dec 6)