Friday, September 1 2006 14:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: NASA rescheduled its next space shuttle launch for Wednesday after a delay to wait out a tropical storm, the second time the mission was postponed. Atlantis and its crew of six were slated to lift off at 1629 GMT Wednesday on a construction mission to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency said Thursday on its website. Mission managers began moving the shuttle Tuesday toward its protective hangar, then reversed direction after weather forecasters said that tropical storm Ernesto had weakened and was unlikely to regain hurricane-strength winds over Florida. NASA put off an initially scheduled Sunday liftoff to inspect the launch site after a severe lightning strike. The rescheduled launch on Tuesday was too close to Ernesto's expected arrival at Cape Canaveral, site of the Kennedy Space Centre.