The shuttle Endeavour was due to be launched on 7 August, but may be delayed following reports of sabotage to sensitive computer equipment.

Credit: NASA

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WASHINGTON DC: A computer due to be installed on the space shuttle Endeavour was found sabotaged, says NASA, the latest in a string of controversies concerning the U.S. space agency.

"One of our subcontractors noticed that a network box for the shuttle had appeared to be tampered with," said NASA spokeswoman Katherine Trinidad. "It is intentional damage to hardware."

Endeavour is due to be launched on August 7 with seven crewmembers on board, for a mission to continue construction of the International Space Station (ISS), the manned orbiting laboratory.

Ongoing investigation

The workers who discovered the damage to the computer equipment notified NASA "several days ago," Trinidad said. "There is an ongoing investigation."

Safety is a major concern in shuttle missions after damage sustained during launch of the Columbia shuttle in 2003 caused it to break up on re-entry, killing all seven astronauts on board.

"The tampering occurred at a subcontractor's facility and not while the unit was at the Kennedy Space Centre," NASA's Cape Canaveral base, added Trinidad, but gave no details of who the subcontractors were nor exactly where the damage was. "What we are trying to do now is repair that unit and try and fly it when possible."

The shuttle Atlantis successfully completed a mission to the station in June, a welcome bit of good news for NASA after a string of embarrassing incidents in recent months.

Kidnap and shooting

In February astronaut Lisa Nowak, a former crewmember on the shuttle Discovery, was arrested, accused of a bizarre attempt to kidnap a love rival. NASA fired her in March.

Then in April, a NASA contractor Bill Phillips managed to sneak a revolver past security at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, and barricaded himself inside a building at the sprawling campus, police said.

He duct-taped a female co-worker to a chair and shot a male colleague dead before turning the gun on himself.

Also this week, the trade magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology, citing an internal NASA panel, said that astronauts had been allowed to fly spacecraft while known to be drunk and posing a risk to safety.

A NASA spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on the issue, but a press conference is scheduled for Friday.

Drink-driving

"If the reports of drunken astronauts being allowed to fly prove to be true, I think the agency will have a lot of explaining to do," said Bart Gordon, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' science and technology committee.

The agency also faced political bother in May when NASA chief Michael Griffin drew fire for comments on the hot topic of harmful climate change. He publicly questioned the need to tackle global warming.

The successful Atlantis mission, meanwhile, was initially delayed by three months because the shuttle's external fuel tank was damaged during a freak hail storm as it stood on its launch pad.

The delay forced NASA to cut the number of planned shuttle flights this year from five to four.

On the August mission, astronauts are to deliver a giant truss to be attached to the ISS, along with an external stowage platform and a Spacehab pressurised cargo carrier.