Canadian Julie Payette will wait until Monday to make second space trip

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NASA captured this dramatic picture of lightening striking the launch pad on Friday

Canadian astronaut Julie Payette will now have to wait another day to make her second space flight.

The launch of shuttle Endeavour was scrubbed on Sunday because of bad weather, the second such delay after the first launch was delayed dure to lightening strikes to the launch pad.

The launch was scheduled for Sunday after authorities decided the spacecraft suffered no harm from 11 bolts of lightening that struck a lightening mast on Friday.

The launch is now scheduled for Monday evening.

“We’ve seen nothing so far that shows anything affected any of the systems,” said Mike Moses, chairman of the pre-launch Mission Management Team followiing the lightening storm Friday.

Two of the strikes were strong enough to trigger an evaluation by engineers just to make sure all of Endeavour’s systems are ready for flight. Although early evaluations showed no problems, engineers wanted more time to make sure they have checked everything correctly.

“We need to be 100 percent confident that we have a good system across the board,” Moses said.

This is Payette's second space flight.

This will be Payette’s second space flight. The 46-year-old is married and has two children. She was born in Montreal.

Payette flew in space May 27 to June 6, 1999 for 9 days, 19 hours and 13 minutes. During that time she made 153 orbits of the Earth, traveling more than six million kilometers.

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Payette.

Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

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