Repair could delay Shuttle Discovery launch

(Cape Canaveral, Florida-AP) -- Shuttle Discovery's mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope could be delayed yet again.<br><br>Managers will decide Tuesday if there is enough time to replace an electrical

Monday, December 6th 1999, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Cape Canaveral, Florida-AP) -- Shuttle Discovery's mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope could be delayed yet again.

Managers will decide Tuesday if there is enough time to replace an electrical cable without delaying an early Saturday launch.

A nicked cable was discovered during a routine inspection Monday and must be replaced. The Teflon-coated wiring sends commands to one of three main engines and feeds back information to flight controllers.

Discovery has had two months of launch delays because of faulty wiring. Right now, it's set to blast off at 12:13 a-m Eastern time Saturday. A delay would push the launch back eleven and a-half hours, to 11:42 p-m Saturday.

The Hubble telescope needs new gyroscopes installed so that it can maintain proper alignment.

NASA hopes to complete the mission by year's end to avoid any possible Y-2-K problems.