Discovery 'looking good'
2006-07-09 15:18
Houston - A few nagging safety issues
remain, but Nasa engineers said on Sunday the problems found on
shuttle Discovery since its Tuesday launch appear to be minor
enough not to need repair.
In an e-mail message to the shuttle crew, they said
Discovery's heat shield looked ready to withstand the rigors of
landing next week, although more inspections will be done later
in the 13-day flight.
A steady stream of good news about Discovery has given Nasa
growing confidence that its $1.3bn safety upgrade of the
shuttles following the 2003 Columbia disaster is a success.
This flight was viewed by many in the US space agency as
a make-or-break mission for the troubled shuttle program, which
is critical to finishing the half-completed $100bn space
station.
One lingering concern is a couple of ceramic cloth "gap
fillers" sticking out from between heat shield tiles.
Nasa managers said one had been judged safe and the other was under
study, but "it is expected that this will be cleared" upon
final analysis.
The same was true for minor damage to protective thermal
blankets on the spacecraft.
"Both of these items are very close to be cleared as safe
for entry," the e-mail said.
If it turns out that there is a problem of note, astronauts
Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum could attempt to fix it while
spacewalking next week.
Sunday's e-mail message to the crew said marks that showed
up on photos and sensor data of the shuttle's wing and nose
areas had turned out to be little worse than possible bird
droppings.
Fragile head shield
The shuttle Columbia broke apart as it descended toward
Florida on February 1 2003 because of a hole punched in its wing
heat shield at launch by insulating foam that shook loose from
the fuel tank.
Hot gases entered the breach during its fiery descent
through the atmosphere, which destroyed the spacecraft and
killed the seven astronauts on board.
Despite modifications to the tank, foam broke loose on the
first post-Colombia shuttle flight last summer, but did no
harm.
Following more changes, there was still flyaway foam during
Tuesday's launch, but not enough to pose a threat, Nasa
believes.
Agency officials say some amount of foam - which protects
the massive fuel tank from ice formation - will always come off
during the rock and roll of a shuttle launch, but a few small
pieces should not endanger the orbiter.
On Saturday, astronauts Sellers and Fossum left the
orbiter, clamped their feet into restraints on a 30m boom to see if it was sturdy enough to take them to
the furthest reaches of the shuttle.
They found it steady
enough to use as a work platform for possible repairs.
Discovery linked up with the space station on Thursday and
its crew was to spend much of Sunday transferring more than 2 200kg of supplies and equipment to the
station.
The shuttle currently is set to return to Earth on July
17.