CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- European officials signed over to NASA on Wednesday a new node designed to link together several space-station modules, and one NASA official said December was a reasonable goal for the shuttles' return to flight.
At the ceremony at the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Europeans celebrated the arrival this month of the Italian-built Node 2, while Japanese guests marked the arrival of the Japanese Experiment Module.
"This program is all about friendships and partnerships and doing things together for the betterment of all of our civilization," said KSC Director Roy Bridges, who will become head of Langley Research Center in August.
Several officials made speeches celebrating the historic cooperation involved in the International Space Station, expressing hope for an expanded crew in the future, and praising the work that continued in spite of the Feb. 1 accident that killed Columbia's crew.
"We knew the right thing to do was to keep going forward," NASA station manager Bill Gerstenmaier said.
Michael Kostelnik, NASA's top manager for ISS and shuttle, said the agency was anticipating the Gehman board's report on the Columbia accident and moving ahead with fixes on the external-tank foam. A piece of foam shed during launch is thought to have caused a breach in the orbiter's left wing.
NASA is looking at ways to inspect shuttles in orbit, he said, using camera views from the station's robotic arm. "That gives us a tremendous capability we did not have in the past," Kostelnik said.
While the first flights would occur in daylight so pictures could be taken of the shuttle during its ascent -- and when the external tank separates from the orbiter -- future shuttles could lift off at night once NASA is comfortable with the risks, he said.
Kostelnik foresees always having one shuttle undergoing an overhaul while the other two fly two to three missions a year, each.
"There's a tremendous opportunity to improve safety, to improve our processes and our perspective on things," he said. "The people we are putting in place are absolutely the right people for this return-to-flight activity."
Technical fixes should be completed by December, he said, with a launch possible in December or early 2004.
Such a launch could ease a potential supply crisis aboard the station, which, supplied by Russian Progress and Soyuz craft, would have enough water for a two-man crew through the first of the year.
"The farther you go beyond that, the more problematic it starts to get, so the more important a return to flight and its dates are," Kostelnik said. "Water is one of those issues, but spare parts is another."
Some parts are too big to be carried on a Progress, and if small parts are needed, they might have to bump food and water from a cargo capsule's manifest, he said.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2003 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
advertisement
