Nasa fixes shuttle tiles
2005-07-13 07:56
Florida - With the countdown for Discovery in its final hours, Nasa was dealt an embarrassing setback when a window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail.
But the space agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for launch on Wednesday.
The mishap on Tuesday was an eerie reminder of the very thing that doomed Columbia two and a half years ago - damage to the spaceship's fragile thermal shield.
The lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 18 metre and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the Nasa manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations.
No one knows why the cover - held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds - fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the shuttle's windows, then removed before lift-off.
Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare in what Stilson said was a minor repair job.
The cover, which weighs less than 1kg, struck a part of the fuselage that houses one of the engines used by the shuttle to maneuver in orbit. Launch managers were still awaiting an engineering analysis on whether the blow caused any damage to the engine hardware, but Stilson said she was confident there would be no problems.
'Godspeed, Discovery'
Word of the mishap came just two hours after Nasa declared Discovery ready to fly to space for the first time since the Columbia disaster.
Until the window cover fell, Nasa's only concern was the weather. Because of thunderstorms in the forecast, the chances of acceptable weather at launch time were put at 60%.
Discovery and its crew of seven were set to blast off at 19:51 GMT. The last few technical concerns had been resolved on Tuesday afternoon at one final launch review by Nasa's managers.
"It is utterly crucial for Nasa, for the nation, for our space programme to fly a safe mission," Nasa Administrator Michael Griffin said after the meeting. "We have done everything that we know to do."
The families of the seven astronauts killed during Columbia's catastrophic re-entry praised the accident investigators, a Nasa oversight group and the space agency itself for defining and reducing the dangers.
Like those who lost loved ones in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire and the Challenger launch explosion, the Columbia families said they grieve deeply "but know the exploration of space must go on".
"We hope we have learned and will continue to learn from each of these accidents so that we will be as safe as we can be in this high-risk endeavour," they said in a statement. "Godspeed, Discovery."
On the net:
spaceflight.nasa.gov
- AP