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NASA 'Return to Flight' plan outlines 29 changes to make shuttles safer

Posted on: Sunday, 7 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

NASA 'Return to Flight' plan outlines 29 changes to make shuttles safer

By WARREN E. LEARY New York Times

Sunday, September 7, 2003

Washington -- NASA has developed an ambitious plan to get space shuttles flying again next year that details the steps the agency is taking to comply with each recommendation of the board that investigated the Columbia accident.

The Implementation Plan for Return to Flight and Beyond, to be released Monday, outlines numerous changes in launching procedures and training, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's plans for modifying space shuttles to make them safer.

Among other actions, NASA is looking at ways to harden the shuttle to protect it from debris, is developing a repair material that can be used in space on heat tiles and other parts of the shuttle, and plans to improve training for mission managers.

On Aug. 26, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board released a 248-page report that was highly critical of the NASA operations and decision-making that led up to the Feb. 1 shuttle disaster. The 13- member board, led by Harold W. Gehman Jr., a retired admiral, made 29 recommendations for reforming the shuttle program and NASA, including 15 it required be put in place before flights resume.

The plan is a broad blueprint listing actions the agency is pursuing to fulfill those requirements. The agency also has outlined actions it is taking beyond the recommendations, including evaluating the International Space Station as a haven for shuttle crews that might be stranded because of a problem.

The return-to-flight plan includes a schedule for completing scores of tests, modifications and procedural reforms aimed at having the shuttle Atlantis resume flights in April.

At a hearing Thursday on the Gehman report, the chairman of the House Science Committee, Sherwood L. Boehlert, a New York Republican, said he was worried that NASA was moving too quickly to resume flights, without completing necessary reforms. "I'm concerned that NASA may already be rushing to meet unrealistic launch dates instead of examining this report closely and moving deliberately," Boehlert said.

The NASA administrator, Sean O'Keefe, told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that there was no rush to meet a spring deadline.

The plan was in the works even before the Gehman board released its final report. As the board was conducting its investigations, it released five recommendations early so that NASA could get to work on them. These included using better imaging of shuttles at takeoff and in space to detect potential problems, developing tools to repair damaged heat protection shuttle components in space, and eliminating the shedding of insulating foam from the main fuel tank during launching.

Investigators determined that Columbia had been irreparably damaged when a piece of foam struck its left wing shortly after takeoff and cracked heat-protection material on the leading edge. When the shuttle returned from a 16-day mission, superhot gases penetrated the wing, causing structural failure that doomed Columbia and its seven-member crew.

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