Safety concerns have made NASA to delay the first space shuttle launch of 2009. The officials of the agency at Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida, stated that they have postponed the date of Discovery’s launch.

The managers and engineers of the US space agency discussed for 13 hours on Friday about the dangerous problems it may appear once Discovery is launched. The main issues that have concerned the engineers were those connected with the fuel valves in the space shuttle’s engine compartment.

 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials now have to decide whether they would launch Discovery in mid-March.

No new date for Discovery has been scheduled yet and its crew of seven astronauts is due to fit the International Space Station with the fourth and final set of solar arrays. The orbiter has a two-week mission, but NASA agency still doesn’t know when the orbiter will finish its mission.

The concerns about Discover are also linked to its previous launch in November last year, when a small part of one valve cracked. Yet, the officials said at that time that there had been no danger for the crew or the shuttle. Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's associate administrator for space operations, stated that they needed more time as to understand the consequences linked to the loss of a piece of the space shuttle.

He added that they must be very careful about the presumptions they make and the conclusions they jump to. The NASA agency now has nine shuttle flights left before it may finish the construction of the station and the fleet is due to finish its mission in 2010.