NASA officials this morning said the space shuttle Endeavour launch is being delayed for 72 hours, a day longer than initially expected.
Hundreds of Thousands of people are in Cape Canaveral to watch the liftoff including President Obama and the first family and U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, who is married to mission commander Mark Kelly.
Officials cited a technical problem and notified media of the delay about 9:30 a.m. Tucson time. No details about the technical problem was released, but officials said it was related to a heater failure.
A storm pushed through the area after daybreak, but NASA expected it to be gone by the expected launch time at 3:47 p.m.
Endeavour was bound for the International Space Station.
For its last hurrah, it's carrying one of the most expensive payloads in NASA's 30-year shuttle history: a $2 billion particle physics detector that will seek out antimatter and dark energy across the universe.
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Kelly and his all-male crew - all six of them space veterans - saw their families for the last time Thursday.
"Gabrielle is just as excited as all of you!" her staff said in a Twitter update late Thursday.
She's being accompanied by her husband's identical twin, Scott, also a space shuttle commander.
"Ready if replacement is required," Scott joked in a tweet.
As many as 700,000 people were expected to crowd nearby coastal communities. For days, police have been warning of massive traffic delays.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
