Foam loss on Discovery’s external tank prompts indefinite suspension of next mission
After a 14-day mission, Space Shuttle Discovery successfully landed at Edwards AFB in California on 9 August, but there is no date for the next Shuttle launch.
NASA administrator Michael Griffin will not confirm whether a Shuttle will fly again this year. “We will try as hard as we can to get back into space [this year],” he says.
Space Shuttle Atlantis is in the vehicle assembly building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but its processing for mission STS 121 is on hold. That flight was planned for 9 September at the earliest.
The foam loss from the external tank (ET) on Discovery’s ascent has led to an indefinite suspension of flights until the problem is solved.
The investigation to resolve the ET foam problems may not be the only changes to the Orbiter vehicles.
“We’ll look across the entire vehicle and see where we need to go next,” says NASA associate administrator, office of space operations, William Readdy.
The loss of Columbia saw a wider analysis of Space Shuttle systems.
For now, NASA has a Tiger Team investigating the foam loss using fault tree analysis.
Discovery was at an altitude of 220 miles (350km), travelling at over 14,700kt (27,000km/h) when mission control in Houston, Texas, gave the go-ahead for a landing at Edwards, one of two back-up landing sites on the American continent. Landing at the primary site at Kennedy Space Center had been ruled out due to local storms.
NASA used two WB-57 chase aircraft to video record Discovery’s take-off and planned to use them to record its descent. But they could not be moved from Florida to California in time.
During the mission’s three spacewalks, the crew demonstrated new Shuttle tile inspection and repair techniques; performed maintenance tasks on the International Space Station (ISS) and attached an external platform, and, during the third spacewalk, removed two gap filler strips from between tiles in the Shuttle’s nose gear area.
Discovery also resupplied ISS expedition 11 crew using the Italian built Rafaelo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.
Discovery’s arrival at Edwards was the 50th Shuttle landing at the air force base on the edge of the Mojave desert. It was the sixth night landing at Edwards by a Shuttle.
The orbiter’s return to Kennedy Space Center was expected to take nine to ten days. Discovery’s return trip on the back of a modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will be led by a pathfinder aircraft to avoid storms.
ROB COPPINGER/LONDON
Source: Flight International
