A powerful electrical storm at Cape Canaveral in Florida has delayed the launch of the space shuttle, Endeavour.
It had been due to take off yesterday on a two week mission to the international space station.
The space agency, NASA, is checking whether the lightning strikes have caused any damage before deciding on another launch later today.
‘We've seen nothing so far that indicates anything was actually affected by the lightning strikes,’ Mike Moses, the shuttle program manager at the Kennedy Space Center, said.
‘I fully expect this to be a positive story, but we have a lot of equipment that has to be checked and that's what takes time,’ he said.
Endeavour's primary cargo is a porch for Japan's $2.4bn Kibo lab complex.
The platform can be used to expose experiments to the open environment of space.
The porch is scheduled to be installed during the first of five spacewalks planned during Endeavour's 12-day stay at the outpost, a $100bn project of 16 nations.
The space station has been under construction 360km above Earth for more than a decade.
It consists of nearly 26,000 cubic feet (735 cubic metres) of pressurized space, about as much room as a typical four-bedroom house.
The shuttle also will be ferrying a new crewmember to the station.
NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra will take over for Japan's Koichi Wakata, who has been aboard the station since March.
NASA had hoped to fly Endeavour last month, but the mission was rescheduled after hydrogen leaked from a vent line while the ship was being fuelled for flight.
