The scheduled March 14 launch of the Hellas-Sat satellite on an Atlas V rocket has been postponed by International Launch Services (ILS) after company officials detected a flaw in the welding of a rocket segment.

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] identified problems with certain welds on the aft bulkhead of the Centaur upper stage stacked on the booster, company officials said. An undetermined delay that will stretch well beyond a couple of days will needed to allow time to replace the Centaur with one already in the company’s Denver final assembly facility.

The Hellas-Sat launch was scheduled as the second flight of the next-generation Atlas V launch vehicle, from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Fla. A new date will take into consideration all necessary pre-launch tests, and every effort will be made to meet the customer’s requirements, ILS officials said. Mark Albrecht, president of ILS, told SATELLITE TODAY that the length of the delay would exceed well beyond “a couple of days.”