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MURMANSK, Russia— The docking of the gutted wreck of the Kursk nuclear submarine was postponed until next week because of the need to more thoroughly prepare for the delicate process, the Russian navy said Thursday. 

The preparations for the docking began as scheduled Thursday when Dutch and Russian experts began attaching the two huge pontoons needed to hoist the submarine into dry dock at a ship-repair plant in Roslyakovo, near Murmansk. However, the docking, which had previously been set for Saturday afternoon, was put off until an unspecified day next week, said Northern Fleet spokesman Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky. 

He said the decision to put off the docking was made on the request of Dutch engineers who said they wanted to make additional calculations and checks to ensure that the bulky combination of barge, submarine and pontoons enters the dock without a hitch. 

“Because of the unique character and complexity of the docking, we agreed to perform it next week,” Navrotsky said. “There must be no rush.” 

Earlier this week, the carcass of the Kursk was raised from the Barents Sea floor by the Dutch Mammoet-Smit International consortium. The unprecedented salvage operation took place more than a year after the submarine sank, killing all its crew of 118. 

Clamped beneath the Giant 4 barge, which lifted it from the seabed on 26 steel cables, the wreck arrived in the waters of the Roslyakovo ship repair plant late Wednesday. 

For about eight hours until early Thursday, officials performed a series of complex checks to ensure that the Kursk’s twin 190-megawatt nuclear reactors were not leaking radiation. 

“The checks have confirmed that the radiation situation remained normal,” Navrotsky said. 

Officials have said the reactors were safely shut down when the disaster occurred. But the risk of a potential radiation leak in the rich fishing grounds of the Barents Sea was a key reason cited by the Russian government for the costly, precarious operation to lift the Kursk. 

Concern about a possible radiation leak prompted Roslyakovo officials to work out contingency evacuation plans and boost stocks of iodine. 

Officials will keep constant watch over the radiation levels on Kursk, using a stream of information from gauges installed on its hull and other measuring devices on ships around the submarine and on shore. A screen erected on a Roslyakovo street constantly displays radiation levels to assuage local residents’ fears. 

Once the Kursk is put in dry dock, officials will remove the remains of the crew. Navrotsky said officials only expect to find 30 or 40 bodies, because the others were likely pulverized by the powerful explosions that sank the submarine during naval exercises Aug. 12, 2000.