Shuttle Getting Ready for Next Launch

Everyone is getting ready to hold their breath. Best of luck to the crew and people involved in the upcoming shuttle flight and mission.

Shuttle Is Set for Liftoff Saturday, With All Eyes on the Fuel Tank
New York Times 06/27/2006
Author: Warren E. Leary
c. 2006 New York Times Company
With dogged determination, NASA will try resuming regular space shuttle missions this week, hoping that the venerable spacecraft will weather aging components and falling debris long enough to finish construction of the International Space Station.

The shuttle Discovery is scheduled to be launched as early as Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on just the second flight since the loss of the Columbia and its crew of seven. Officials hope to test the modifications and new procedures instituted after the disaster.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration flew its first test flight after the disaster almost a year ago, and the second was to follow just weeks later. But a problem with shedding foam persisted, even after the space agency spent more than a year and hundreds of millions of dollars to correct it.

The Columbia disintegrated while returning from a research mission on Feb. 1, 2003, after being critically damaged at liftoff when a piece of foam weighing 1.67 pounds broke from its external fuel tank and struck its left wing. That opened a crack that admitted superheated gases when the craft re-entered earth's atmosphere.

When the highly modified Discovery flew last year, much less foam debris fell. But the tank still shed several unacceptably large pieces, weighing up to a pound, that could have done severe damage. NASA grounded the fleet and removed 35 more pounds of foam from critical areas. This month, mission managers pronounced the Discovery ready to fly again, even though some engineers argued that more needed to be done.

Tags: Aerospace | Space | Engineering