Fourth attempt to launch weather satellite aborted

BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) A fourth attempt to launch a new European weather satellite from the Kazakh Baikonur Cosmodrome was halted seconds before lift-off today due to an unspecified problem.

''The MetOp launch was postponed due to an anomaly which happened in the last seconds before launch,'' the satellite's operator EUMETSAT said in a statement on their Web site. ''A new launch date will be announced soon.'' Three previous attempts to launch the Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the MetOp satellite were scuppered by technical problems in July. The fourth attempt had been scheduled to take place at 16:28 GMT.

The satellite will ultimately go into a close polar orbit around the earth, meaning it will circle the globe every 90 minutes, gathering meteorological images and atmospheric data.

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