CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA has a
plan to fix its problem-plagued external fuel tanks, and the agency is studying
the possibility of launching its next two shuttle missions in May and July.
NASA aims to replace an
external tank foam ramp that shed a one-pound piece of insulation on the
agency's first post-Columbia mission, prompting managers to put future flights
on hold.
NASA shuttle chief Wayne
Hale met with managers Thursday and asked them to determine what it would take
to launch a second test flight in May and an International Space Station
assembly mission in July.
Hale "was very
straight-forward in saying, 'Look, these are not launch dates, but I just want
you guys to come back and tell me what it would take to get there, if we can
get there,' " said Kyle Herring, a spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston.
NASA's next mission
officially is targeted for a March launch. But foam insulation problems and
hurricane damage to agency facilities have made that all but impossible.
"I think that May
would be the earliest, based on two hurricanes that not only caused damage at
some of the facilities but also displaced the work force," Herring said.
Hurricane Katrina damaged
NASA's Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and Michoud Assembly
Facility in New Orleans. The agency estimates its repair and recovery costs
will be about $1.1 billion.
Shuttle engines are tested
at Stennis. Tanks are made at the Louisiana factory. Hurricane Rita forced NASA
to close JSC last week, but no serious damage was done.
Katrina destroyed or
damaged the homes of many of the 3,500 NASA and contractor employees who work
at Stennis and Michoud. Many still are living in temporary housing.
"The work force is the
first and foremost priority -- making sure that they are safe, and that they
are taken care of. At the same time, a lot of those people who are affected are
also motivated to get back to the business of flying space flights,"
Herring said.
"Even with the
devastation to their lives, it's been kind of remarkable that they have stepped
up and are back at work and are trying to balance that with their own personal
issues."
The 2,000 workers at
Louisiana plant will play a key role in fixing an external tank foam ramp that
shed a one-pound
piece of insulation during Discovery's July 26 launch.
In a haunting reminder of
the Columbia accident, the foam nearly hit the shuttle's right wing.
A 1.67-pound chunk of foam
from Columbia's tank punched a hole in that shuttle's left wing, enabling hot
gasses to rip the ship apart during atmospheric reentry.
The foam that doomed
Columbia was designed to keep ice from building up on and potentially breaking
off of an area where metal struts connect the tank to the nose of the orbiter.
A heater replaced the
so-called bipod ramp as part of a $205 million post-Columbia effort to fix the
tank.
On Discovery's flight, foam
broke off a protuberance air load ramp that runs along the side of the 15-story
tank. Its purpose: To ensure smooth airflow and minimize vibration around
nearby pipes and cables.
NASA plans to remove the
37-foot ramp, replacing it with a new type of foam that will be applied with
more exacting techniques designed to prevent shedding.
The area will be outfitted with
instrumentation to better understand aerodynamic forces that could cause damage
in flight.
Engineers think the change
will work because the first 10 feet of the ramp was removed and replaced in
that same fashion prior to Discovery's flight.
The work was done so that a
safety modification could be made beneath the ramp, and no foam was shed from
the reworked area.
The tank for NASA's next
shuttle mission is being brought by barge back to the New Orleans factory and
is expected to arrive there Sunday.
Engineers plan to use
high-tech inspection gear to examine the ramp. Then they'll remove it and
dissect it to try to learn more about the foam shedding phenomenon.
A return to Kennedy Space
Center by January would put NASA in position to launch in May.
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