CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA has found no reason to once-more
delay tomorrow's landing for the space shuttle Atlantis and its
six-astronaut crew after an initial review of imagery from last-minute
inspections today, mission managers said Wednesday.
"We didn't
see any evidence of any kind of damage," Atlantis' STS-115 entry flight
director Steve Stich in a status briefing. "So far the inspections are going
well."
Atlantis'
STS-115 crew - commanded by veteran
shuttle astronaut Brent Jett - performed two different inspections of their
spacecraft late Tuesday and early today. The inspections, the crew's third of
the STS-115
mission, were scheduled after flight controllers spotted a mystery
object floating away from the orbiter early Tuesday, prompting a one-day
landing delay.
The crew is
now slated to land at 6:21 a.m. EDT (1021 GMT) Thursday after 186 orbits around
Earth, followed by a backup landing window one orbit later at 7:57 a.m. EDT
(1157 GMT).
"I fully
expect that, if we find no problem with the [thermal protection system], that
we'll land tomorrow," Stich said.
Atlantis
astronauts began surveying their shuttle's heat shield using cameras on its
robotic arm Wednesday night at 11:45 p.m. EDT (0345 Sept. 20 GMT) in a 4.5-hour
scan that included the orbiter's wing leading edges, tile-covered undercarriage
and nose cap. They then conducted a focused inspection of the orbiter's wing
edges, nose cap, elevons and tail-mounted speed brake. The survey was complete
by about 9:19 a.m. EDT (1319 GMT).
"They sound
good, they sound rested, they sounded eager," Dye said of Atlantis' crew during
today's briefing. "They're jumping into procedures that they've never done
before, and I think they're doing great."
About the
only things that jumped out at image analysts during today's heat shield
inspection were the absence of a protruding
gap-filler and an orange plastic spacer, known as shim
stock, that were jutting from between the heat-resistant tiles on Atlantis'
belly-mounted external tank umbilical doors, Stich said.
The
harmless protrusions were seen in two earlier heat shield inspections - one
on Sept. 10, a day after launch and another
Monday following the Sept. 17
undocking from the International
Space Station (ISS). Both inspections found Atlantis' heat shield in
pristine shape for reentry.
"We know
the team's working really hard," Jett told flight controllers this morning.
"These last-minute days can be tough and we know that you're under some
pressure."
Jett and
his crewmates delivered a $372 million
pair of trusses and new
solar arrays to the ISS during their 12-day mission, marking the first
major addition to the orbital laboratory since late
2002.
Tracking
a mystery object
Jett and
his crewmates had just put Atlantis through a rigorous, but standard,
pre-landing test known as a flight control systems (FCS) checkout to test the
elevons and other systems when the initial mystery object was sighted at 2:45
a.m. EDT (0645 GMT) Tuesday.
Atlantis
astronauts later reported - and photographed - an object though to be a plastic
bag later Tuesday, then again spotted what Jett described as a bit of
reflective cloth early Wednesday.
It is not
uncommon for small items to float out of shuttle payload bays once their doors
are opened just after launch, though it is uncommon late in the flight, Stich
said, adding that the flight control system checks to cause considerable
vibrations and shudders aboard orbiters before landing.
"We are
shaking the vehicle up and perhaps after FCS checkout we knocked a few things
out of the payload bay," Stich said.
Stich
added that NASA and the Atlantis crew lost nothing from today's inspection,
since the poor
weather expected to plague a Wednesday landing attempt arrived in force
early today.
Rain
showers would have prevented Atlantis' from landing during two opportunities
today, prompting the shuttle's six-astronaut crew to spend one more day in
orbit anyway, he added.
"Today
would not have been a great day to land," Stich said.
NASA's
STS-115 Mission Management Team is expected to convene later today, and brief
the media at 12:00 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT). That briefing will be broadcast live on
NASA
TV, which is available by clicking
here.
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