British-born astronaut faces wait

Dr Piers Sellers was due to fly again in September

A NASA astronaut who was born in Sussex and educated at Cranbrook School in Kent is facing a six-month delay before his next mission.

Piers Sellers has been in intensive training to prepare for the launch of the shuttle Atlantis in September.

But NASA has now decided to postpone the launch until March, to investigate why insulating foam fell from the shuttle Discovery last month.

Dr Sellers has been designated the lead space-walker for his next mission.

"From an overall standpoint we think really March 4th is the time frame we are looking at," said Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's new head of space operations and the official overseeing the foam fix.

"The teams are making very good progress. But we're still not complete by any stretch of the imagination."

Dr Sellers has had to wait nearly three years for another chance to go up into space since his debut flight in October 2002.

Then he became only the third Briton to go into space when he completed an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

Dr Sellers was born in Crowborough but as an astronaut with the US space agency, he flies as an American citizen. The UK does not fund human spaceflight.