Space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-122 mission to the International Space Station is targeted to launch no earlier than Jan. 2 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The liftoff date depends on the resolution of a problem in a fuel sensor system.

Early Sunday, one of the four engine cutoff, or ECO, sensors inside the liquid hydrogen section of Atlantis’ external fuel tank gave a false reading while the tank was being filled. NASA’s current Launch Commit Criteria require that all four sensors function properly.

The next Shuttle window opens December 30th but NASA do not want to risk flying over the change of the year incase a computer goes bonkers (that is the non technical reasoning).

The Crew heads back to Houston on Sunday evening, before leaving said:

“We want to thank everyone who worked so hard to get us into space this launch window,” the astronauts said in a statement. “We had support teams working around the clock at KSC, JSC, and numerous sites in Europe. We were ready to fly, but understand that these types of technical challenges are part of the space program. We hope everyone gets some well-deserved rest, and we will be back to try again when the vehicle is ready to fly.”

Oh well Roll on January!

Dec. 6, 6:15 p.m. EST: During tanking, two of four LH2 Engine Cutoff (ECO) sensors failed to respond appropriately, which is a Launch Commit Violation. The requirement to proceed calls for 3 of 4. The launch was scrubbed at 9:56 a.m. EST on the recommendation of Launch Director Doug Lyons.

The shuttle Launch was scrubbed today sadly. They are going to look to the next lauch window which is tomorrow at 4.09pm est (9.09pm UK time)

Checkout NasaTV tomorrow from around 8:30pm GMT to see all the build up!

UPDATE: Nasa have now put the next attempt back till Saturday 3.43pm est.

If you have Windows Vista installed, why not surf over to this address

http://tinyurl.com/2o63vj

I have created a sidebar gadget to show NasaTV. I only need 297 more downloads to hit the 20,000 mark! I know shameless plugging but hey it’s my blog!

Also apologies for the sparse posts, I have 4 deadlines due next Friday so have been working like trooper to get everything done!

I plan to get a few churned out this weekend and next week. On my list of things to do is:

• A Seesmic Review
• A podcast.com Review
• A Yahoo Messenger for Vista review

Plus breaking tech news that I feel is worth mentioning!

I am honestly trying to get back to regular blogging asap!!