Astronauts
aboard NASA's space shuttle Endeavour inspected their spacecraft's heat shield
for damage Saturday while engineers on Earth tackled minor communications
glitches as the orbiter heads toward a weekend rendezvous with the
International Space Station.
Shuttle
astronauts used a laser-tipped inspection boom to scan Endeavour's wing edges and
nose cap for launch debris damage. They took extra time to take a close look at
the base of the shuttle's left rear engine pod, where part of an insulating
blanket apparently ripped free during Endeavour's Friday
night launch.
The lost
blanket is likely one of two pieces of debris spotted during Endeavour's
liftoff and reported to the crew by Mission Control late last night, said LeRoy
Cain, chair of the mission's management team, in a status briefing. The blanket
is less than an inch thick, between 12 and 18 inches (30-45 cm) long and 4
inches (10 cm) wide, and not in an area that gets too hot during re-entry, he
added.
"This is
not an area that is of great concern to us in terms of losing a blanket," Cain
said.
Endeavour
is due to dock at the space station on Sunday at 5:13 p.m. EST (2113 GMT) to
deliver a new station crewmember, two new bedrooms, a second kitchen, extra
bathroom, exercise gear, and a water recycling system that filters urine and
sweat back into drinkable water. As they approach, astronauts aboard the
station will conduct a photographic survey of Endeavour's heat shield as well.
NASA has
kept a close eye on shuttle heat shield health the loss of the
shuttle Columbia and its astronaut crew in 2003. A piece of fuel tank
insulation broke free during that shuttle's launch and slammed into its
wing-mounted heat shield, causing it to burn up during re-entry. Astronauts now
routinely inspect their spacecraft's heat shield just after launch, before
docking at the space station and just before landing.
So far,
Endeavour's wing edges and nose cap have shown no obvious damage, but a team of
specialists will spend the next few days poring through the inspection results
to be sure, Cain said.
Meanwhile,
engineers on Earth are working through two unrelated glitches with Endeavour's
main radio communications antenna, which appears to have separate hardware and
software woes keeping it from working normally.
Cain said
that the antenna doubles as radar tool during shuttle dockings at the space
station. But Endeavour can use a backup star tracking system in its place if
the glitches bog the radar function down during the shuttle's planned space
station arrival tomorrow.
Commanded
by veteran spaceflyer Chris Ferguson, Endeavour's seven-astronaut crew is
flying a planned
15-day mission to the station to make repairs and install vital equipment
designed to double the outpost's crew size up to six people next year. Four
spacewalks are planned to clean up an ailing solar array gear damaged by metal
shavings and grinding.
NASA
welcomed the crew to their first full day in space earlier today with the song
"Shelter" by Xavier Rudd, a long-distance dedication for Ferguson from Earth.
"Always a
great day to be in space," Ferguson
said.
NASA is
providing live coverage of Endeavour's mission on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's
mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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