"We no longer have an opportunity to launch tomorrow, our earliest opportunity we are working to right now is Saturday," Leroy Caine, chairman of the mission management team, told reporters here after NASA officials held hours of discussions.

Thursday's scheduled launch was postponed hours before blast-off because of faulty fuel gauges, and the agency had hoped to reschedule it for Friday.

"At the end of our discussions today, it was our determination that we need more time" to address the problem, Cain said. "I asked the team to posture us with an opportunity to fly as early as Saturday ... It's a very complex situation."

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