CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An early 2002 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and a subsequent space station construction flight are being pushed back three to four weeks to allow more time to prepare a pair of shuttles for flight.
Senior NASA managers, meanwhile, likely will decide Friday to forego extra inspections to orbital maneuvering engine pods on three shuttles, a move that would clear the way for the planned late November launch of Endeavour on a space station crew rotation mission.
"We're optimistic that will be the case," said NASA mission manager Melissa Gard.
During a cross-country teleconference Thursday, shuttle program managers decided to postpone the planned Jan. 17 launch of Columbia until Feb. 14, delaying a mission to service the Hubble telescope and outfit it with an advanced planetary camera.
Columbia, which is NASA's oldest orbiter, returned to Kennedy Space Center earlier this year after a 17-month overhaul at a shuttle assembly plant in Palmdale, Calif.
Engineers since then have determined that it will take more time than originally anticipated to prepare the shuttle for its return to flight, which will mark the ship's 27th trip into orbit.
The Columbia delay, coupled with the desire to finish some electrical wiring modifications on Atlantis, prompted managers to postpone a planned Feb. 28 launch of the latter ship on an International Space Station construction mission.A central truss segment is to be delivered to the outpost aboard Atlantis on that mission, which now is being targeted for launch March 21.
The planned launch dates for five other 2002 shuttle missions, meanwhile, were left unchanged at the conclusion of the teleconference, but the delays in the two earlier flights likely will have a ripple effect.
A planned April 18 launch of Endeavour on another station construction flight probably will be pushed back to around May 5.
Also facing delays of two weeks to a month: a May 23 launch of Columbia on a research mission, and flights to the station now scheduled for launches on Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery on July 11, Aug. 22 and Nov. 21, 2002, respectively.
NASA's next shuttle flight, meanwhile, likely will remain targeted for a Nov. 29 launch.
Managers have been considering a delay to inspect fixtures that attach the shuttle's twin orbital maneuvering engine pods to the spaceship. But the results of an engineering analysis are expected to show that the shuttle is safe to fly without extra inspections.
Engineers inspecting Columbia recently discovered and repaired a problem with one of the 12 attachment points for the shuttle's hump-like pods, which straddle the ship's vertical stabilizer.
Large bolts are driven through each of the attach points to secure the pods to the orbiter. They are routed through a bowl-shaped support plate that is attached to the skin of the pods by smaller bolts that measure 5/16th-of-an-inch (0.8-centimeters).
The inspections on Columbia showed that boltholes associated with the support plate were elongated - perhaps the result of improper machining.
Consequently, bolts driven through the holes were found to be a bit loose, raising concerns about the structural integrity of the attach point.
A failure of the attach point during a shuttle launch could damage structural metal within the pod and potentially cause other attach points to weaken or break in flight.
An engineering analysis, however, so far indicates that the suspect attach point still would bear the brunt of aerodynamic forces encountered during launch despite elongated boltholes.
Engineers as a result are expected to recommend foregoing any extra inspections to the attach points on Endeavour, Atlantis and Discovery, work that likely would delay the planned Nov. 29 launch until late December or early next year.
A final decision on the matter might be made during a management meeting Friday.
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