The Nation : Delayed Shuttle Launch Set for Thursday

NASA rescheduled the once-aborted launch of space shuttle Atlantis for Thursday afternoon after technicians working around the clock did a “bang-up job” in replacing two faulty fuel system parts. The space agency said in a statement that “this plan is optimistic . . . pending completion of testing and analysis” of problems that led to the scrubbing of Friday’s launch attempt. A new countdown is to start this morning. Five astronauts aboard Atlantis are to propel the $550-million Magellan spacecraft toward Venus to map the surface. The launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida was scrubbed Friday 31 seconds before the planned liftoff because of a pump failure.