NASA delays Mars Science Laboratory rover mission

NASA delays Mars Science Laboratory rover mission

American Space Agency NASA has announced that they are now delaying their Mars Science Laboratory rover mission.

It was scheduled to fly next year but they are now delaying it to 2011.

NASA said that they need more time for testing and fixing hardware related problems.

The mission is designed to study the Red Planet and look for microbial life.

Analysts believe that this delay would increase the cost of the project massively.

Nasa’s administrator Michael Griffin had this to say on the delay in this mission: “Trying for ‘09 would require us to assume too much risk, more than I think is appropriate for a flagship mission.”

Charles Elachi, director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory added: “Despite exhaustive work in multiple shifts by a dedicated team, the progress in recent weeks has not come fast enough on solving technical challenges and pulling hardware together.”