NASA's Space Shuttle mission schedule may be disrupted by more cracks - this time on the mobile platforms on which the vehicles are rolled to the launch complexes.
Fractures on the main engine liquid-hydrogen flow-liners on the orbiter Atlantis have been repaired, clearing the way for a hoped-for 28 September resumption of Shuttle launches. But cracks in some of the 32 bearings on the two operational crawlers have led to fears of a platform being stranded between the vehicle assembly building and launch site during a Shuttle roll-out.
Crawler One has around 15 cracked bearings, while Crawler Two has 13. NASA may be forced to replace the first crawler's bearings with good ones from the second.
Source: Flight International
