GLAST spacecraft awaits a Wednesday launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency said all is ready for the often delayed launch of its GLAST spacecraft from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta II rocket.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope is to lift off during a window that extends from 11:45 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. EDT Wednesday. The launch had been postponed several times due to unresolved technical problems.

Workers at the launch pad loaded the hypergolic propellants into the Delta II rocket's second stage last weekend. On Wednesday they are to begin loading the liquid oxygen part of the fuel, marking the start of the final phase of the launch countdown at 10:15 a.m. EDT, NASA said.

The mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed by NASA in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and with academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.