LONGUEUIL, Que -
Canadian astronaut Julie Payette has returned to Houston to wait for her next chance to blast off for the International Space Station after the second hydrogen leak in less than a week grounded the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
Mathieu Caron, a mission control supervisor at the Canadian Space Agency, says the next chance to launch for a link-up with the space station is "no earlier than July 11.''
Payette and her six American crew mates will resume their training in Houston and see their families in the meantime.
"It's a very complex mission and they have to maintain the time that's available to them to rehearse again and train as much as they can to be ready,'' Caron said in an interview.
The latest delay should not require any changes to the planned mission which is still expected to last more than two weeks, he added.
"The objective remains to fly the full 16-day mission with the five space walks because the mission is jam-packed with robotics and space walks,'' Caron said. "The mission managers are trying very hard to maintain the mission as it has been designed.''
He says NASA engineers will have to take another look at the leak which caused the latest delay.
