NASA has decided to postpone any space shuttle flights until March of 2005. All shuttle flights will be devoted to completing the International Space Station. Astronauts can inspect and make repairs while at the space station, and they can wait to be rescued if the damage is beyond their repair.

New safety requirements include the necessity of daytime launchings to get photographs of the liftoff from multiple angles. The safety factor limits the number of days a shuttle can be launched to the space station. The next window of opportunity runs from early March to mid-April.

NASA will have a rescue shuttle on standby too. It would be ready to launch within 45 to 90 days, which would be the length of time the astronauts could stay aboard the space station in an emergency. There are enough supplies on the space station to keep seven astronauts in food, water, and air for up to 90 days.

The Discovery will be the first shuttle launched since the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003. Atlantis will be the standby shuttle. It is the first time NASA has had a rescue ship waiting in the wings since the first space station Skylab in the 1970’s. Shuttle flights and space station construction have been on hold since the Columbia accident.