CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery was moved to the launch pad Thursday to await a liftoff that could be as early as Dec. 7 — an effort to avoid potential New Year's Eve computer glitches.
The worry is that shuttle computers aren't designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. NASA has never had a shuttle in space on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.
"We've just never had the computers up and going when we've transitioned from one year to another," Discovery astronaut Joan Higginbotham said. "We're not really sure how they're going to operate."
Starting Dec. 7, launch opportunities would be available as late as Dec. 17 or 18. With a 12-day mission, that would mean the shuttle would be back on Earth before New Year's Eve.
But NASA said that even if the shuttle was still in space on Jan. 1, it could find a way to cope.
