Astronauts to inspect shuttle Discovery for damage

By Jeff Franks

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Astronauts on the shuttle Discovery
awoke to their first full day in space on Wednesday and
prepared to inspect their orbiter for damage after launching
from Florida on a flight NASA hopes will get the troubled U.S.
space program back on track.

Photos and videos from Tuesday’s Fourth of July takeoff
showed flecks of insulating foam flying off the shuttle’s
problem-plagued fuel tank after launch, but NASA executives
said initial examinations revealed no cause for alarm.

The shuttle crew was to spend most of Wednesday using a
robot arm to scan Discovery’s most vulnerable parts with lasers
and close-up cameras to see if the loose foam caused any nicks
to the spacecraft’s protective heat shield.

A 1.67 pound (756 gram) chunk of fuel tank foam was blamed
for the Columbia disaster in 2003 after it slammed into the
shuttle’s wing at launch and later caused the orbiter to break
apart over Texas, killing the seven astronauts on board.

Potentially dangerous foam also flew off on a subsequent
shuttle mission last summer, raising questions about whether
the spacecraft NASA has flown since 1981 could still be
operated safely enough to finish the half-completed $100
billion International Space Station.

NASA spent $1.3 billion over the last three years to fix
the fuel tank and make safety upgrades to the shuttle.

NASA managers had warned that the tank, covered with more
than 4,000 pounds (1,818 kilograms) of foam, would continue to
shed debris, but expected no pieces large enough to damage the
shuttle in case of impact.

Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said with one possible
exception the foam pieces spotted on Tuesday were small, and
only one appeared to strike the spacecraft. But he said the
foam shook loose late enough in the launch that it appeared not
to pose a danger because it hit with little force.

NO CAUSE FOR CONCERN

“I think the tank performed very, very well indeed, very
pleased. As opposed to where we were last year, we saw nothing
that gives us any kind of concern about the health of the crew
or the vehicle or any cause to think we wouldn’t be safe to fly
the next tank,” Hale said.

“It’s all very minor, it’s all very light,” he said of the
launch debris.

The agency needs a successful mission to resume space
station construction, which has been on hold since the Columbia
accident and will require 16 shuttle flights to complete.
Another accident or serious problem could ground the shuttle
fleet permanently before its planned retirement in 2010.

Discovery is scheduled to link up with the space station on
Thursday.

The shuttle’s 12-day mission is meant to test fuel tank
repairs and deliver badly needed supplies and equipment to the
space station. The astronauts will make two spacewalks.

One will test a 50-foot (15-meter) extension to the
shuttle’s robot arm. Crews use the boom to inspect the ship for
damage but NASA wants to know if it could be used to maneuver
spacewalkers to inaccessible parts of the shuttle for repairs.

During the second spacewalk, astronauts Piers Sellers, a
British-born climate scientist, and Michael Fossum, an American
making his first spaceflight, will try to fix the space
station’s broken mobile transporter.

The transporter, a cart that travels on tracks on the
outside of the space station, will be needed to install trusses
and solar arrays on the space station. It has been broken since
December.

A third spacewalk to test shuttle repair techniques will be
performed if Discovery has enough fuel to extend the mission
for a day.

Damage to Columbia at launch went undetected until it
disintegrated 16 days later as it flew back into the atmosphere
from space. Superheated gases entered the breach in a wing heat
shield and caused the spacecraft’s destruction,