Future shuttle flights on hold
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Posted: 8:06 a.m. EDT (12:06 GMT)CNN) -- Discovery docked with the International Space Station on Thursday as NASA tried to determine why insulating foam fell off the shuttle's external fuel tank during its launch.
The shuttle-station rendezvous at 7:18 a.m. ET was the first since November 2002, NASA said.Discovery flew in an unusual upside-down maneuver while it docked so space station cameras with special lenses could take pictures of it, looking for possible damage.
The images will be sent from the station to NASA engineers on Earth, who will scrutinize Discovery's surface tiles and its thermal-protection system, explained Wayne Hale, deputy shuttle program manager."Any damage will not escape our detection," Hale said at a Wednesday news conference. NASA said that during launch, a piece of tile also fell from Discovery's underside near the forward landing gear -- an area that has a redundant thermal barrier.
Falling foam from Columbia's external fuel tank during launch in 2003 was blamed for damaging the spacecraft, which led to the deaths of seven crew members when Columbia attempted to return to Earth. Discovery is the first shuttle launch since that tragedy.The piece of foam fell from Discovery's fuel tank during the shuttle's ascent into orbit on Tuesday. But unlike the Columbia incident, it did not strike the orbiter. Several smaller pieces also tore away, a NASA spokesman said.
Discovery's crew is in no apparent danger, but NASA said Wednesday it won't launch any more shuttles until engineers solve the problem of foam falling from the fuel tank.NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Thursday that the foam problem will be solved.
"We're very fortunate that Discovery appears not to have been damaged by this piece of foam and we're going to fix that before we fly the shuttle again," Griffin said on CNN's "American Morning.""The team has worked hard, very hard, for two-and-a-half years to get the tank to be absolutely as clean is it can be. We missed this one."
Hale said the foam that fell off the tank is from 24 to 33 inches long, 10 to 14 inches wide, and 2.5 to almost 8 inches thick -- only slightly smaller than the piece of foam that damaged Columbia's wing.Over the next four to five days, engineers "will come up with a fly-home as-is recommendation, or a repair recommendation, as required," Hale said.
Shuttle crew members plan to test repair techniques during three space walks by astronauts Steve Robinson and Soichi Noguchi of Japan. The two also plan to service the space station.Since Columbia, NASA has developed contingency plans for astronauts to try to repair damaged shuttles so they can return to Earth. If a spacecraft cannot be repaired, plans call for the crew to take refuge in the space station until a rescue mission can be launched.
Discovery is due to return to Kennedy Space Center August 7. CNN's Miles O'Brien, Marsha Walton and Kate Tobin contributed to this report.Winks & nudges are here - Download MSN Messenger 7.0 today!
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