HOUSTON -- Astronauts
aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis scanned their heat shield for a second time
Tuesday as engineers on Earth pondered a bit of debris seen during the orbiter's
departure earlier from the International Space Station (ISS).
Atlantis'
STS-117 crew inspected vital heat-resistant panels along the shuttle's wing
edges and nose cap for damage by micrometeorites and orbital debris late
Tuesday, but at first look the scan showed no obvious signs of change from an
earlier survey, shuttle officials said.
Cathy
Koerner, NASA's lead STS-117 shuttle flight director, said image analysts will
study the images overnight to ensure Atlantis' heat shield is still clear for a
planned Thursday landing. Mission managers initially cleared the orbiter of any
concern related to debris shed during its June 8 launch last week pending the
now-standard late inspections.
NASA analysts
are studying a white object that appeared to drift from the ISS in video taken
by a camera aboard Atlantis well after the shuttle had cast
off from the orbital laboratory to determine if it actually emanated from
the station or is merely small bit of debris near the orbiter.
"The early
analysis is that it's probably something that came from the orbiter since the
orbiter was moving away," NASA's ISS program manager Mike Suffredini said,
adding that image analysts are studying additional video from Atlantis just to
be sure. "Which makes it a very small object."
If it came
from the
space station, the object would be larger due to the distance between the
outpost and Atlantis, and resembled a blanket-like material in video from the
shuttle, Suffredini said. The ongoing study is a mark of due diligence since
the object was clearly visible in video from the undocking, but it is not
thought to be a concern, he added.
Koerner
added that ice is a typical companion near the shuttle during orbital maneuvers
as exhaust water freezes, and said it is not uncommon for small objects to fly
near orbiters in space.
Last
September, a number of small objects spotted floating nearby Atlantis by its
STS-115 crew prompted additional
inspections and a landing delay, but no damage or other concerns were
ultimately found.
Atlantis
undocked from the ISS at 10:42 a.m. EDT (1442 GMT) after a busy construction flight
to the orbital laboratory.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle flyer Rick Sturckow, the STS-117 installed new
power-generating solar arrays and their 17.5-ton truss segments to the
station's starboard side, furled an older solar wing and stapled a loose
blanket down to Atlantis' left engine pod during the course of four spacewalks.
The mission also featured a one-astronaut swap for the station's Expedition 15
crew.
Atlantis is
slated to return to Earth Thursday, with landing set at 1:54 p.m. EDT (1754
GMT) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
NASA is broadcasting the space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission live on NASA
TV. Click here for mission updates
and SPACE.com's video feed.
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