NASA Eyes Debris Hits to Shuttle Heat Shield

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Better late than never. NASA celebrated the tardy launch of the space shuttle Endeavour late Wednesday and is looking into several bits of debris spotted during the spacecraft?s liftoff.

A few pieces of debris fell from the shuttle's external tank during the launch, though it's too early to tell whether they may have damaged the orbiter.

"The bottom line is we saw some stuff," said Endeavour's mission management team chair Mike Moses after launch. "Some of it doesn?t concern us, some of it, we just can't really speculate on right now. But we have the tools in front of us, and the processes in front of us to go clear the vehicle for entry. No real worries there, we just got to wait and see what happens."

Mission managers will pore over high-resolution images taken from the ground and cameras mounted on the shuttle to investigate any possible harm incurred by Endeavour's sensitive heat shield tiling.

About eight or nine separate debris pieces were seen to fall in initial imagery, including some in the sensitive time period after launch when debris would be moving at speeds that could harm the shuttle, said NASA?s space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier. Though this may be more than during some other recent missions, that may have been because of favorable lighting conditions, he said.

Some slight nicks were seen in the black coating on the shuttle's underbelly in early images, though those shouldn't pose any danger to the shuttle, Gerstenmaier said.

"We had really good visibility today, good lighting conditions," Gerstenmaier said. "So of all the flights we've seen with this good lighting conditions I'd say we probably saw more events on this particular tank, but we haven?t seen some other tanks that have been launched in the evening and in dark."

NASA has kept a close watch on the health of its space shuttle heat shields since tragic loss of the shuttle Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew in 2003. A piece of external tank foam debris struck Columbia?s wing during liftoff and punched a hole in the heat shielding on its left wing, leading to the shuttle?s loss during re-entry.

Since then, astronauts perform a now-standard inspection of the shuttle's underbelly twice on every mission.

The first survey by Endeavour?s crew will come tomorrow using a sensor-tipped pole. When Endeavour arrives at the space station, it will steer in a pattern called the rendezvous pitch maneuver to allow astronauts aboard the station to take detailed pictures of its underbelly to check for damage.

Overcoming delays

NASA took advantage of a break in Florida's volatile summer weather to launch Endeavour after a string of storms and a gas leak kept the mission grounded for more than a month.

"It took a lot of patience a perseverance to get here," Gerstenmaier said. "We had a great launch today. We were ready. The weather finally cooperated."

Commander Mark Polansky plans to lead Endeavour's seven-member crew on a 16-day mission to the International Space Station to install an outdoor science porch on the Japanese Kibo laboratory and vital spare parts.

"The mission is very challenging in front of us," Gerstenmaier said. "The five EVAs, the robotic activities, will take the absolute best that the teams have."

The exposed research porch will complete the massive $1 billion Kibo complex, the main contribution to the International Space Station by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"This is an exciting and historic day for JAXA," said Kuniaki Shiraki, Executive Director of JAXA. "I feel great pleasure at this successful launch."

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SPACE.com is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz at Cape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for live mission updates and SPACE.com's NASA TV video feed.