NASA shuttle
managers and engineers will meet today to discuss whether to press ahead with
repairs to the Atlantis orbiter's hail-damaged tank for the agency's next
mission or replace the dinged vessel with a pristine replacement.
Engineers
have been working to repair a myriad of divots and dings etched into to the
vital foam insulation covering Atlantis' 15-story external tank during a freak
Feb. 26 hail storm over its Florida launch
pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The resulting damage delayed the
shuttle's planned 11-day STS-117 construction flight to the International Space
Station(ISS) until mid-May at the earliest pending successful repairs.
Replacing
the external tank would push the spaceflight to June, NASA officials have said.
Last month,
top NASA shuttle
managers set April 10 as their deadline to decide whether to press ahead
with Atlantis' fuel tank repairs or shift to a new tank altogether. Anew
shuttle fuel tank -- currently reserved to feed the launch of NASA's Endeavour
orbiter during its STS-118 mission later this year -- arrived at KSC last week
"It's
strictly a status report on the progress of the repairs," NASA spokesperson
Kyle Herring told SPACE.com Monday of today's shuttle meeting.
Shuttle
mission managers are expected to discuss today's meeting during a press briefing
slated for no earlier than 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT).
Meanwhile,
NASA engineers are working to remove
Atlantis' three main engines and inspect propellant lines to make sure
carry no contamination after four small pieces of silicon rubber were found in
similar locations aboard the shuttle Discovery.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle flyer Rick Sturckow, Atlantis' six-astronaut STS-117 crew
will deliver two new massive trusses and solar arrays to the space station's
starboard side.
NASA's
current window to launch the mission closes on May 21 due to unfavorable Sun
angles on the space station's solar arrays, and reopens on June 8
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