This
story was updated at 4:18 p.m. EDT.
HOUSTON -
Astronauts spotted a trail of small dings on the starboard wing of the space
shuttle Atlantis Tuesday during a heat shield inspection as they race toward
the Hubble Space Telescope.
The dings
were caused by launch debris that fell from the shuttle's external tank as
Atlantis rocketed
toward Hubble on Monday afternoon, but an initial analysis suggests the
damage is minor.
Lead
shuttle flight director Tony Ceccacci said the dings are spread across a
21-inch (53-cm) area that includes four heat-resistant tiles. They are located
on the bottom right side of Atlantis just ahead of where the shuttle's body
meets its starboard wing.
"They
looked very minor, but we're going to let the folks go ahead and take a look at
it, follow the standard process and determine what to do next on it," Ceccacci
told reporters during a briefing here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Launch
debris blamed
The dinged
tiles were found in a spot where wing-mounted sensors recorded a slight debris impact
about 103 seconds after Atlantis launched, Ceccacci said. They appeared as
small nicks in images beamed to Earth from today's heat
shield inspection, but more analysis is required.
"Everybody
is feeling pretty good that it's not something particularly serious," astronaut
Daniel Burbank radioed up to Atlantis from Mission Control here. "We just
want to make sure we do the right thing and complete all the analysis."
Atlantis
commander Scott Altman and his crew are flying an 11-day mission to overhaul
the 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope for the fifth and final time. They are
due to arrive at the space telescope on Wednesday.
Five
consecutive spacewalks are planned to install two
new cameras and repair two others that were never designed to be fixed in
space among other upgrades.
Extra
inspection possible
While the
dings appear to be minor, Atlantis is carrying a suite of repair tools just in
case they might be needed. NASA has also primed the space shuttle Endeavour on
a second launch pad in the unlikely event that Atlantis is damaged beyond
repair and its crew needs to be rescued
in space.
NASA has
kept a constant lookout for any shuttle damage from launch debris after a piece
of fuel tank foam struck the shuttle Columbia in 2003 leading to its
destruction during re-entry. Seven astronauts were killed in the disaster.
Now,
astronauts scan their shuttle heat shields at least twice every mission.
Today's inspection was the first for Atlantis' crew. The astronauts will take
another look later in the flight to spot any new damage from space junk. The
region of space around Hubble's 350-mile (563-km) orbit is littered with space
debris, adding a slightly increased risk to the shuttle mission.
Mission
Control told Altman that the astronauts might have to keep trying to beam back
images from a stubborn camera on the shuttle's belly that took snapshots of
Atlantis' external tank during launch. The images could reveal where the debris
came from, but the camera has experienced glitches sending the images.
Altman and
his crew may also have to perform a more detailed scan of the dings during a
focused inspection. The astronauts would have to cram that survey in between
their challenging
spacewalks.
"We know it
takes awhile to get the story together," Altman said. "We'll get you whatever
data we can."
But
Ceccacci said that if a second look is required, there is a 90-minute window on
Friday just before the mission's second spacewalk.
"I don't
expect it to take very long to get that complete," Ceccacci said.
Launch
pad also damaged
While the
Atlantis crew works in space, NASA is examining unexpected damage on Earth to the
shuttle's launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The blast
from Atlantis' engines damaged some nitrogen and pressure lines, as well as a
25-square-foot section of flame retardant material lining the trench beneath
the shuttle's Launch Pad 39A,
NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com
from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The so-called flame trench is used to funnel rocket exhaust away from the spacecraft during liftoff.
Beutel
said pad workers are expected to be able to repair the launch pad damage in
time for the planned June 13 blast off of NASA's next shuttle mission.
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of NASA's last mission to the Hubble Space
Telescope with senior editor Tariq Malik in Houston and reporter Clara
Moskowitz in New York. Click
here for mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
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