Shuttle delay worries intl space station partners

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – The international
partnership dependent on the U.S. shuttle fleet to complete the
International Space Station is getting nervous as NASA pledges
to take as much time as it needs to fix Discovery.

Japan, one of 16 nations involved, has spent more than $3
billion on space station vehicles and modules including a
laboratory named Kibo — Japanese for “hope.”

Kibo now sits — along with Europe’s Columbus module, a
connecting node, station trusses, solar arrays, and a sparkling
seven-sided cupola window — in a hangar at Florida’s Kennedy
Space Center, not too far from where NASA is troubleshooting
Discovery.

The shuttle’s launch, which had been set to be the first
since the 2003 Columbia accident, was postponed on Wednesday
because of a fuel sensor problem.

“It is a concern,” said Japan’s space station program
manager Kuniaki Shiraki, who was at the space center last week
to watch Japan’s Soichi Noguchi and six NASA astronauts blast
off aboard Discovery to resume servicing and resupplying the
orbital outpost.

Shuttles have been grounded and construction of the
multibillion-dollar space station halted since Columbia
disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, as it returned to Earth.

Its wing had been damaged at liftoff by a piece of foam
insulation that fell off the fuel tank, and the shuttle was
destroyed over Texas as superheated atmospheric gases blasted
into the hole. All seven astronauts aboard perished.

RETIREMENT LOOMING

Shuttles are due to be retired by 2010, leaving little time
to finish the station, which before the accident had been set
to get 28 shuttle missions.

NASA is now looking to fly 20 missions to the station at
best, and more likely about 15, said NASA administrator Michael
Griffin.

Even getting those flights off the ground, however, will
depend on the effectiveness of the shuttle’s new tank and other
post-Columbia safety changes, he added.

“If we intend to complete the International Space Station
in the near future, then we have to make a decision that the
(fuel) tank is good enough to fly,” Griffin said last week at a
preflight news conference.

Crucial to resuming station assembly is for NASA to be able
to drop a requirement to have a second shuttle on standby in
case a rescue mission is needed.

“We will not for long be able to maintain a rescue
capability and still maintain the station,” Griffin said.

The agency also is looking to end a new requirement to
launch during daylight so that cameras will have good views of
the liftoff and any debris falling off the tank.

The agency would rely on radar imagery to detect tank
debris during night launches.

The latest shuttle problem concerns one of four sensors
designed to make sure Discovery’s main engines cut off before
the hydrogen fuel runs out. Operating the engines without fuel
could be catastrophic.

NASA needs to repair the fuel sensor within a week or so to
preserve a few days at the end of the month to get Discovery
into space. Otherwise it likely would push the launch back to
the next launch period, from Sept. 9 through Sept. 24.