[WASHINGTON]

The launch date for the US$2 billion Chandra X-Ray Observatory, originally scheduled for August 1998, was set back from May to July 1999 last week, the fourth postponement in just over a year.

Most previous delays had involved problems with the spacecraft, but the new delay has been caused by space shuttle missions being rescheduled to launch part of the International Space Station in May.

The delays to Chandra, third of the “Great Observatories”, have cost NASA some $50 million, but have not otherwise compromised the mission, say project scientists. The observatory, renamed to honour the late Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, will operate until 2004.

NASA had more bad news last week, from its Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. The panel said in its annual report that personnel cuts in the agency and the shuttle'sprivate operator, the United Space Alliance, have jeopardized safety to the point where NASA is “moving toward losing the core competencies needed to conduct the nation'sspace flight and aerospace programs in a safe and effective manner”.

It advised the agency to ensure adequate budgets for its three field centres involved in human spaceflight. The report suggests that NASA'stactic of subsidizing science spending by cutting the shuttle programme may finally have come to breaking point.