HOUSTON – Astronauts aboard the space
shuttle Discovery will likely not have to perform a focused inspection of their
spacecraft’s heat shield, NASA said Thursday.
NASA
shuttle engineers poring over recent data and images of Discovery’s heat
shield have yet to find concerns that would warrant a second look at the orbiter’s
heat-resistant tiles of wing edge panels, though mission managers will make the
final decision as early as Friday.
Astronaut
Tony Antonelli, serving as spacecraft communicator in Mission Control here at
the Johnson Space Center, radioed the good news to Discovery’s STS-120
crew, which is preparing for the first of five record-tying spacewalks
outside the International Space Station (ISS). NASA’s orbiter project
team plans to recommend that mission managers not take time from the crew’s
busy schedule this week for the extra heat shield inspection, he said.
“Oh
man, that is fantastic news,” Discovery commander Pamela Melroy replied. “We
sure appreciate it. Obviously, it’s been a question that’s very
much on our minds.”
Analysis
still under way
Mission managers had set aside about three
hours on Saturday for Melroy and her crew to revisit any suspect areas in
Discovery’s heat shield using sensors at the tip of a 50-foot (15-meter)
extension of the shuttle’s robotic arm.
John
Shannon, head of NASA’s mission management team for Discovery’s
flight, told reporters that engineers were about 90 percent complete with their
analysis of a Wednesday
scan of Discovery’s wing edges and nose cap, and had yet to
find cause for concerns. A similar analysis of high-resolution images taken of
the shuttle’s belly-mounted tiles as it docked
at the ISS earlier today was still under way, he said.
“No
one has seen anything that has caused any alarm or concern at all,” Shannon said of Discovery. “It’s a pretty clean vehicle.”
A small
piece of ice that shook free from a fuel tank pipe and glanced off aft-mounted
tiles as Discovery ignited its engines during a Tuesday launch also posed no
risk to the orbiter, he added.
NASA has
kept a close watch on shuttle heat shield integrity since 2003, when foam
damaged the Columbia orbiter’s wing leading to the loss of the spacecraft
and its crew during landing.
In addition
to now standard inspections just after launch, shuttle crews perform focused
scans if required and also make one final survey - dubbed a “late
inspection” - before landing to check for signs of damage from
micrometeorites or space debris.
Spacewalk
on tap
Melroy said
that without the extra heat shield inspection, she and her crew can focus their
attention on installing and outfitting the Harmony module. Formerly known as
Node 2, the Italian-built
pressurized module will serve as the anchor for future European and
Japanese laboratories at the ISS, and is the first new room to be added to the
station since 2001.
Discovery spacewalkers
Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock will step outside the ISS early Friday
and, working alongside robotic arm operators inside the station, help install Harmony
to the outpost’s Unity module.
The planned
6.5-hour excursion will mark the first of five planned during the STS-120 to
deliver the new node, relocate a massive solar power tower, prime the ISS for
future expansion and test shuttle repair techniques.
“We’re
pretty excited to hear about that because it’ll give us more time with
Node 2,” Melroy said of the plan to skip the focused inspection. “We
just can’t wait to get inside.”
NASA is broadcasting
Discovery's STS-120 launch and mission operations live on NASA. Click here for mission updates
and NASA TV from SPACE.com.
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