SPACE.com -- NASA Targets Dec. 18 for Shuttle Launch Under New Rules

NASA Redesigns Key Piece of Shuttle Hardware

Test Results Back Columbia Foam Theory

Orbiter Workers Seek Closure With Shuttle's Loss

Columbia Disaster FAQ


	NASA Targets Dec. 18 for Shuttle Launch Under New Rules By Todd Halvorson FLORIDA TODAY posted: 04:15 pm ET 11 June 2003

Strict rules accompany Dec

WASHINGTON -- NASA wants to return its shuttle fleet to flight by about Dec. 18 and then launch six missions to complete the U.S. core of the International Space Station by February 2005, agency officials said Tuesday.

New ground rules already are being adopted along with other changes designed to prevent a repeat of the Feb. 1 accident that destroyed shuttle Columbia and claimed the lives of seven astronauts.

Among them: No nighttime launches, an external fuel tank redesign to prevent foam debris from damaging shuttles and new methods for handling potentially deadly problems once a mission is under way.

NASA also is studying the possibility of using the station as a safe haven for shuttle crews in case of emergencies while in orbit. And the agency even is contemplating the benefits of having a second shuttle on standby when a sistership launches.

Senior agency officials, meanwhile, acknowledge the target date is ambitious and that NASA will approach the fleet's return to space with caution.

"We are going to be deliberate to ensure that we return to flight in a safe manner," said Michael Greenfield, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Technical Programs. "We will take as long as it takes."

Columbia and its five-man, two-woman crew were lost when hot gasses penetrated the shuttle's left wing and the ship disintegrated during atmospheric reentry.

Accident investigators have deduced -- but not proven -- that the wing was breached by a 1.7-pound chunk of foam insulation that broke free from the shuttle's external fuel tank 81 seconds after Columbia's launch on Jan. 16 .

The debris came from the "bipod" of the tank, a place where two metal struts connect the 15-story tank to the orbiter. Custom-crafted foam has broken away from that area on at least six other shuttle missions.

Consequently, a redesign is underway. Greenfield said NASA engineers probably will choose a design that eliminates foam from that area of the tank.

"By removing the foam, you remove the hazard," he said.

Among other changes:

No night launches for the foreseeable future.

Launching in daylight will allow the best photography of the shuttle in flight as well as any debris that could damage the shuttle's thermal protection system.

A revamping of mission management from the ground after a shuttle crew takes off.

NASA in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger disaster strengthened a highly formal structure for dealing with problems that crop up before a launch. The so-called Flight Readiness Review process provides a forum for managers and engineers to raise concerns about potential safety issues so they can be resolved before a liftoff.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said the agency now is trying to determine how to incorporate the "same types of rigor" in the way mission managers handle problems after launch.

Jettisoning the external tank during orbital daylight.

Explosive charges separate the tank from the orbiter about nine minutes into flight. NASA wants engineers to plan missions so that separation doesn't happen over a dark side of the Earth. Jettisoning the tank over the sunlit side of Earth will provide the best chance for shuttle cameras to photograph any foam loss from the fuel tank as it drops away.

Also under consideration by NASA:

Limiting shuttles to flights to the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope.

Cameras on the station can be used to survey shuttles from any launch debris damage that could prove fatal to an astronaut crew.

The Hubble telescope, meanwhile, can only be serviced -- or returned to Earth at the end of its service life -- by shuttle astronauts. And allowing the 13-ton observatory to make an uncontrolled atmospheric reentry could threaten people on the ground.

Having shuttle crews seek safety aboard the space station during crises while in orbit.

Greenfield said the agency is examining the amount of food, water, supplies and other gear that would have to be kept aboard the orbiting outpost to make that work. The idea would be to keep the shuttle crew at the station until another shuttle could launch and return them safely to Earth.

Keeping a second shuttle on standby when a sister ship launches.

That idea, however, largely has been discounted because officials consider it impractical with the current demands for construction missions, quarterly crew rotation flights and only three shuttles left in the fleet.

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