Nasa launches investigation
2005-08-11 07:10
Texas - Nasa said on Wednesday engineers have launched an elaborate review into why pieces of foam insulation fell off the space shuttle Discovery's fuel tank, hoping to clear the way for more manned space flights.
A day after Discovery safely returned to Earth following a troubled 14-day mission, the US space agency said senior engineers were examining what caused pieces of insulation foam to break loose from the external fuel tank during the shuttle's launch on July 26.
A similar problem triggered the fiery disintegration of Columbia two and a half years ago as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Nasa had gone to great lengths to prevent a recurrence and the shuttle fleet is now grounded again until the flaw has been rectified.
"The engineering teams already have begun work to understand the causes behind the foam loss, which was identified in imagery taken during Discovery's launch July 26," Nasa said.
Experts in the so-called Marshall Action Team have started "a methodical look at nearly all possible causes of an incident. Once that work is complete, the group is expected to produce a plan to address the cause of the foam loss," a statement said.
The team was led by Dr Raymond Corky Clinton at Nasa's Marshall space flight centre in Huntsville, Alabama. A second team of experts drawn from throughout the space agency would then review the work of the first team.
Persistent safety concerns have raised questions about the long-term health of the shuttle programme and some critics have called for scrapping it altogether to free up resources for planned missions to Mars.
Nasa administrator Michael Griffin called the Discovery mission an "outstanding success" and hoped that insulation problems would be solved soon.
The shuttle Atlantis is tentatively scheduled to launch on September 22.