Debris and weather saw Space Shuttle Atlantis land 24h late on Kennedy Space Center’s 15,000ft (4,500m) long runway, at 06:21 on 21 September.
After its successful 12-day International Space Station assembly mission STS-115, Atlantis landed a day later than expected because of landing site weather issues and unidentified objects spotted by cameras near to the orbiter.
Because of NASA’s fears about the objects’ origins and possible collision with the orbiter, Atlantis pilot Chris Ferguson and mission specialists Dan Burbank and Steve MacLean surveyed the spacecraft’s thermal protection system (TPS) with the orbiter boom sensor system. A shim and spacer previously seen extended from the Orbiter’s TPS tiles were no longer there. NASA does not know whether the shim or spacer were the objects seen near the spacecraft.
Source: Flight International
