The GOES-N spacecraft nears the Astrotech facility early Wednesday to be re-tested before launching aboard a Delta 4 rocket. Credit: NASA-KSC

After spending eight months on the launch pad, the newest U.S. weather observatory has been detached from its Delta 4 rocket booster and returned to the hangar for precautionary health checks before liftoff is attempted again.

"Because of the duration the GOES-N satellite has been encapsulated on the Delta 4, engineers decided that it is prudent to de-stack the satellite and perform some routine check-outs to ensure all systems are performing as originally intended," Boeing's satellite manufacturing firm said in a press statement this week.

Boeing built the spacecraft and the rocket for this mission.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite was put atop the Delta rocket on June 8, 2005 for a summer launch from Cape Canaveral's pad 37B. A series of technical problems delayed the flight through mid-August, including a countdown that was halted less than five minutes before liftoff. Orbital lighting constraints and troubles with batteries used on the rocket slipped the mission into the fall, then a three-month strike by Boeing machinists grounded the entire Delta program.

Boeing is working to resume its launch schedule in April.

Before GOES-N is allowed to fly, however, technicians will conduct a thorough examination of the satellite. And that's something not feasible to perform on the launch pad.

Crews unhooked the 6,900-pound craft from the rocket's second stage and lowered it to the ground Monday. The satellite remained cocooned within the Delta's bullet-shaped nose cone. The payload was transported from Complex 37 to the commercial Astrotech processing facility in nearby Titusville before dawn Wednesday.

The GOES-N spacecraft sits atop a workstand at Astrotech in this file image from last year. Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now

Now back in the Astrotech cleanroom, plans call for the nose cone to be removed and "several weeks" of checks carried out on GOES-N, Boeing said.

"The satellite's deployable appendages, batteries, and other critical elements and subsystems will be checked out to ensure they are ready for launch," the press statement said. "NASA and NOAA will also be checking out their instruments to validate they are in an acceptable condition and ready for flight."

Once GOES-N is deemed ready for flight, the rocket nose cone will be re-installed and the spacecraft returned to the launch pad to join the awaiting Delta 4. The two-stage rocket was rolled to the pad on February 15, 2005.

GOES-N is the first in a new series of U.S. weather satellites with sharper vision and extended life. The craft will be placed into a geosynchronous transfer orbit by the Delta rocket, then maneuvered by its own engine into a circular geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. It will undergo in-space testing before entering a stand-by storage mode to replace one of the nation's older GOES satellites in the coming years.

A launch date for GOES-N has not been set.