The December 21 launch of Corot, a European spacecraft designed to hunt for Earth-like planets in other star systems, has been postponed until December 27, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday. Launch has been delayed by a fuel leak in the Soyuz launcher's Fregat upper stage, it said in a press release.
The 650-kilo (1,400-pound) spacecraft is a multinational mission led by France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).
It carries instruments designed to detect minute shifts in a star's brightness that are caused when a planet passes in front of the star.
These contrasts give vital cues as to the type of planet and its distance from that sun.
The launch will be carried out by a Soyuz-2-1b from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Source: Agence France-Presse
