Posted by
intelligent
505 days ago
(http://www.indystar.com)
Category: Science Discovery Environment |
Just two months before the next planned mission, NASA has decided to revamp a section of the shuttle's fuel tank that cracked off during Endeavour's Aug. 8 launch and gouged the shuttle's heat shield. The dent does not threaten the crew's safety, NASA says.
Endeavour is scheduled to touch down at 12:32 p.m. today at its landing strip in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The weather forecast looks promising, entry flight director Steve Stich said Monday. There's only a slight chance of showers or strong winds that could delay the spacecraft's homecoming.
The next shuttle mission is scheduled for Oct. 23. Any fuel-tank fix probably could be applied soon enough for that flight to lift off on time, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. The odds are much lower for a Dec. 6 flight: a milestone mission to add the first European component to the international space station.
An overhaul of the fuel tank slated to be used on the October mission will tie up NASA's tank hangar. That would keep technicians from starting work on the fuel tank assigned to the December flight, Hale said.
During Endeavour's launch, a hunk of foam insulation fell off the shuttle's fuel tank and smashed into the heat shield on the shuttle's belly. Engineers did not realize that section of the tank could inflict so much damage to the heat shield. Now, they will try to improve that part of the tank.
The risk from that part of the tank, a bracket that holds an oxygen pipe onto the tank's surface, is "probably . . . a little higher than we thought it was," Hale said. "Clearly we're smarter now than we were two weeks ago."
Shuttle managers have not settled on the exact fix to be made, but possibilities include shaving down the foam on the bracket and painting the foam with a material that would discourage the formation of ice, which dislodges the foam.
The space agency also is weighing whether to allot less time to inspecting the tank on the launchpad. One theory says that inspection time added after the disintegration of shuttle Columbia in 2003 allows more ice to form. The longer the shuttle sits on the pad in the humid Florida air, the more condensation builds up.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
LinksMarker is a Web 2.0 content management system
Comments