NASA scrubs launch of Terra satellite

Artist's concept of the Terra spacecraft

December 16, 1999
Web posted at: 3:16 p.m. EST (2016 GMT)

By Amanda Barnett
CNN Interactive Staff Writer

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (CNN) -- NASA scrubbed the launch of an Earth monitoring satellite just seconds before it was to liftoff Thursday aboard an Atlas 2 rocket.

With 40 seconds left before launch, on-board computers detected a problem and halted the countdown.

NASA blamed failure of a red line monitor.

"It appears to have been a table of events associated with the red line monitor that caused the automatic cutoff," said NASA spokesman George Diller.

Pending a complete analysis by engineers, NASA tentatively pushed back the launch by 24 hours to 1:33 p.m. EST on Friday. NASA says weather is favorable for launch on Friday.

Terra is the flagship of the Earth Observing System, a series of spacecraft that NASA plans to put in orbit to measure how Earth's oceans, air, land and people function together.