Weather may delay space shuttle launch from Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA prepared to launch the space shuttle Atlantis on Thursday on a long-delayed mission to deliver a $1.9 billion (968 million pound) European laboratory to the International Space Station, but weather threatened another postponement.

But the U.S. space agency's weather experts offered only a 30 percent chance of a launch as a cold front that spawned killer tornadoes in the southeastern United States headed toward central Florida.

Atlantis' mission was twice delayed in December by technical problems with an emergency engine cutoff system.

The European Space Agency has been waiting for the delivery of Columbus since 2002. It was first postponed by Russian delays launching the space station's service module, then by the 2003 destruction of space shuttle Columbia, which grounded the shuttle fleet for 2 1/2 years.

ESA is counting on Columbus' successful deployment and the March 8 launch of a cargo ship to proceed with future space programs, including participation in NASA's plan to return humans to the surface of the moon.

Eyharts, 50, spent three weeks aboard Russia's now-defunct Mir space station nearly a decade ago. He will replace NASA astronaut Dan Tani as a member of the space station's three-person resident crew.

The agency has 13 remaining missions on the shuttle's roster before the fleet is retired in 2010.

(Reporting by Jim Loney, editing by Todd Eastham)