HOUSTON -
The crew of the space shuttle Discovery will commemorate their lost Columbia
astronaut comrades today, but fear communications problems may cut their
service short, the shuttle's commander told reporters today.
Veteran astronaut
Eileen Collins, commander of Discovery's STS-114 mission, would not shed light
on plans for the commemorative video downlink, to be broadcast live on NASA
Television at 8:04 a.m. EDT (1204 GMT), but expressed confidence in the
health of their spacecraft now docked at the International Space Station (ISS)
"I wouldn't
fly this flight if I didn't think it was a safe thing to do,'' Collins told the
Associated Press, adding that a spacewalk repair to the orbiter's tile-lined
belly Wednesday has boosted her confidence in the shuttle. "When I saw Steve
pull the gap-filler out, I started clapping and we were cheering in the flight
deck."
During the spacewalk,
Robinson pulled two gap-fillers
- ceramic fiber cloth - jutting from between the heat-resistant tiles along the
forward section of Discovery's belly. He is the first astronaut ever to be
positioned on the underside of the orbiter, let alone perform a repair.
Gap-fillers are used to fill excess space between shuttle tiles and prevent the
heat-resistant blocks from bumping against one another.
"Nobody has
done this before," Robinson's spacewalking partner Soichi
Noguchi, of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), told Japanese
students and officials today of the repair. "It was an achievement...it was a
team effort."
Collins has
said that today's commemorative service, which will also include the crew of
the International Space Station, is aimed at honoring all astronauts, including
the seven astronauts who died aboard Columbia when it broke apart
over Texas during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003.
"It is
something we put together to remember the crews who've gone before us,
including the Columbia crew," Collins said Tuesday during a joint shuttle-ISS
news conference. "We have a picture of the Columbia crew on the flight deck
of Discovery."
In 2003,
investigators found that a briefcase-sized chunk of foam insulation fell from
Columbia's external tank and pierced the heat shield lining its left wing
leading, which ultimately allowed hot atmospheric gases to enter and destroy
the vehicle during landing. Discovery's STS-114 crew has conducted an extensive
survey of spacecraft's own heat shield using new tools and methods developed by
NASA to enhance shuttle flight safety in response to the accident.
Engineers
are still examining a damaged
thermal blanket just under the left window on Discovery's forward section.
While not a heating concern for reentry, engineers want to be sure pieces of
the small blanket won't rip off and pose a potential hazard to the rest of the
orbiter downstream. Should the blanket need to be removed, spacewalk planners
are drawing up plans for the potential repair and Discovery's crew was notified
of the possibility at the end of their work day Wednesday.
"I'm less
interested today in determining what causes this problem, than in making sure
it is safe for reentry," Wayne Hale, NASA's deputy shuttle program manager,
said Wednesday.
Discovery
and its STS-114 astronaut crew are scheduled to return to Earth on Aug. 8 and
land at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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