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NASA inspects floating object trailing shuttle
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By Associated Press
Originally Published June, 14 2008 at 12:06 AM
Updated June, 14 2008 at 12:06 AM
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A metal clip fell from Discovery's brakes on Friday but NASA said it
won't delay the space shuttle's scheduled landing on Saturday.
The
astronauts reported to Mission Control earlier Friday that they saw a
rectangular object, about 1 to 1½ feet long, floating away from the
tail of the shuttle. It turned out to be one of three metal clips
around thermal insulation. The insulation is in the shuttle's rudder speed brake, which is used to slow the spacecraft as it comes in for a landing. NASA
says the missing clip isn't critical for landing. It's used to protect
the speed brake from high temperatures during the shuttle's launch. "Orbiters have come back with those missing. It's just not a factor for entry," Mission Control told the shuttle crew. Discovery's
crew had also reported seeing something sticking out from the left side
of the shuttle's rudder. But Mission Control said it was probably just
an optical illusion because of the rudder's angle and the lighting. "There's no worry at all. Discovery is in great shape," shuttle commander Mark Kelly said in media interviews later Friday. Discovery's
crew of seven is returning from the international space station after
delivering and installing a new science lab named Kibo, Japanese for
hope. Mission Control told the astronauts the weather looked good for
landing at 11:15 a.m. EDT Saturday in Florida. On Thursday, the
shuttle's heat shield was given a preliminary thumbs up for the return
trip to Earth after engineers finished scrutinizing all the images of
it on the wing and nose, which were collected Wednesday with a
laser-tipped inspection boom. Discovery's heat shield was expected to be given formal clearance for landing Friday afternoon. The
thermal survey — an exhaustive search for damage — was conducted later
than usual because the astronauts had to wait until they got to the
space station to retrieve their inspection pole. There wasn't enough
room aboard Discovery for the pole at liftoff because the Japanese lab
the shuttle delivered to the space station had taken up nearly all the
room in its payload bay. The inspection is one of the safety
measures put in place by NASA after the 2003 Columbia accident.
Columbia was destroyed during re-entry as a result of a gashed wing. Besides
delivering the new lab, the shuttle also dropped off Gregory Chamitoff,
the station's newest crew member. He traded places with Garrett
Reisman, who lived on the station for three months. Chamitoff will stay
on the station for six months. "We had a very successful shuttle
mission, with the Japanese module attached. It's a very big facility
now," Chamitoff told German President Horst Kohler on Friday during a
call between the space station's three-man crew and German officials. On
Friday, NASA continued investigating what caused extensive damage at
the launch pad used to shoot Discovery into orbit two weeks ago. About
5,300 bricks flew off the pad during the May 31 launch, exposing a
thick concrete wall underneath. The pad was built for the Apollo
moon shots, and the bricks might not have adhered properly to the wall
of the flame trench when they were installed in the 1960s, said LeRoy
Cain, chairman of the mission management team. The flyaway bricks
posed no danger to Discovery, but NASA wants to fix the flame trench —
designed to deflect the exhaust of the booster rockets — so it does not
get worse. Cain said he's confident it will be repaired in time for the
next shuttle flight in October.
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