HOUSTON (AP) -- Early
inspections have revealed no damage to the space shuttle Discovery, NASA said
Wednesday after a day of checking out the spacecraft with on-board cameras.
That means that when the shuttle meets up with the international space station
Thursday morning it likely won't need emergency repairs while hooked up with
the orbital outpost -- unlike last year's daring spacewalk fixes.
Discovery's delicate heat
shield and everything else appear at first glance to be in near perfect shape,
NASA officials said, although it's still very early in the analysis.
Engineers are nowhere near
finished poring over 70 minutes of video that astronauts shot using an extended
boom armed with a laser and cameras to inspect Discovery's delicate reinforced
carbon wing and nosecone.
It took Discovery's crew
more than six hours to get 70 minutes of video because they had to move the
boom slowly so not to bump the fragile shuttle skin.
In 2003, a piece of foam
insulation from the shuttle's external tank knocked a hole in a wing during
launch, causing Columbia to disintegrate as it returned home
for a landing.
And last year, film
captured damage during the first space flight after Columbia, requiring a special on-the-belly
emergency repair spacewalk.
Engineers will
painstakingly go over Wednesday's images of Discovery -- and others shot by
cameras during Tuesday's launch from various locations -- and report any
possible losses of foam from the tank or damage points on the shuttle. So far
the list of "areas of interest'' for possible damage is empty, lead flight
director Tony Ceccacci said in an early afternoon
news conference.
Launch photos show only
five minor cases of debris shedding, all occurring after the shuttle was at
such a high altitude there was little air pressure and no force to cause
damage, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said on Tuesday.
"We have a very clean
vehicle,'' Ceccacci said.
Clean except for what looks
like powerful bird droppings.
The first video of the
right wing of Discovery showed whitish splotches on the black coating. When Ceccacci saw that in Mission Control, he said he laughed.
That's because three weeks earlier he had noticed the same splotches on
Discovery as it sat awaiting launch. He said they looked like bird droppings
from a distance of about 10 feet.
"We didn't touch
anything if that's what you're asking,'' Ceccacci
told reporters, drawing a big laugh.
Ceccacci said the imagery experts will study
the splotches to be sure they're harmless. If that's what they are, "it'll
burn up,'' during the return from space, he said. There wasn't enough heat
during launch to get rid of the residue.
He also said that a prelaunch problem involving a thruster heater should be
fixed by Thursday morning when it's needed for the delicate dance of docking
the shuttle with the space station. The two will stay connected at least until
July 14.
The seven-member Discovery
crew awoke early Wednesday to sounds of "Lift Every Voice and Sing,''
sometimes referred to as the black national anthem.
"That one is
particularly dear to my heart because ... after the day of our nation's
independence, it's very fitting because it reminds us that anyone and everyone
can participate in the space program,'' astronaut Stephanie Wilson, only the
second black woman in space, radioed to Mission Control.
The mission for Discovery's
crew is to test shuttle-inspection techniques, deliver supplies to the
international space station and drop off European Space Agency astronaut Thomas
Reiter for a six-month stay. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Fossum
plan to carry out two spacewalks, and possibly a third, which would extend the
12-day mission by a day.
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