NASA to take close look at shuttle shield damage
section: common, for your questions: KezNews forum, 12.8.2007
Recommended: Click here to check for outdated driversA pair of rookie spacewalkers floated outside the International Space Station on Saturday to bolt an extension onto the orbital outpost's frame while NASA made plans to inspect potentially troublesome damage to the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield.
Shuttle crewmembers Rick Mastracchio and Dave Williams left the station's U.S. airlock at about 12:30 p.m. EDT to begin a planned 6-1/2 hour spacewalk.
Their main job was to bolt a two-tonne, 11-foot-long (3.3-meter-long) aluminum extension onto a solar array support beam installed during NASA's last space station construction mission in June.
The final piece of the half-finished $100 billion station's backbone is due to arrive late next year.
NASA engineers on the ground meanwhile tweaked plans for an additional inspection on Sunday of the shuttle's heat shield.
Photographs taken by the station crew before the shuttle docked on Friday revealed a small but possibly deep gash in the center of one of the ship's belly tiles.
Although shuttles have returned from space several times in the program's 26-year history with far worse damage, NASA did not have the tools and procedures to look for heat shield damage until after it lost the shuttle Columbia and seven astronauts in 2003 due to an undetected hole in the wing.
Ice suspected
Teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan and crewmate Tracy Caldwell are scheduled to pull out Endeavour's 50-foot (15 meter) robot arm on Sunday and mount a sensor-studded extension boom on it to takes images of the damaged tile.
The tile is on the underside of the shuttle near the right, rear landing gear compartment and may have been damaged by ice falling off the shuttle during launch.
The shuttle is covered with ceramic heat-resistant tiles and carbon panels to protect the ship's aluminum skin from melting during the plunge back through the atmosphere for landing. Temperatures around the damage site can reach up to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,093 degrees Celsius). source:
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Comments(3)
when are they going to finally get the whole space travel thing right?
umm...it just so happens to be the most complex thing anyone has ever done....period!!!
they do a beter, more productive job than any one else coud even think about doing.
you should really read some of the information about how nasa is behind in the
development of space tech. i am not saying they do not have it hard, but with time comes
knowledge that they seem to be lacking. i do give them credit for learning that they need
to check the orbiter before reentry, though.
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Come on NASA
By Me on 13.08.2007 - 07:08