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Other space shuttles are grounded

Posted on: Sunday, 1 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Other space shuttles are grounded, awaiting fixes

Associated Press

Sunday, February 1, 2004

NASA's three remaining space shuttles have been grounded since the Columbia accident, and they cannot return to flight until a slew of safety improvements are made.

The space agency hopes that can be done in time for a September launch of Atlantis on a mission to test new inspection and repair techniques and to deliver equipment to the international space station.

But managers concede that the flight could slip into next year because of difficulties in making the necessary fixes.

Columbia accident investigators issued 29 recommendations last summer, 15 of which must be met before the next shuttle mission.

None of the recommendations has been fully carried out yet, but a task force says solid progress has been made in improving launch photography, redesigning a bolt catcher and adopting an industry- standard definition of shuttle debris.

The biggest technical challenges are creation of a repair kit to patch holes in the leading edges of the wings, and an extension boom for inspecting the underside of a shuttle in orbit. The plan calls for using the space station as a platform to carry out much of the work.

All told, the safety improvements will cost NASA at least $280 million, but probably much more.

NASA has decided that all of the remaining shuttle flights will be devoted to completing the space station, although NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe last week agreed to a review of his decision to cancel servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope and let it deteriorate and go out of operation.

Anywhere from 28 to 35 shuttle missions will be needed to finish the space station by 2010. At that point, the shuttles will be retired. They are to be replaced by a crew exploration vehicle that would start out ferrying crews and supplies to the space station and then evolve into a spacecraft for exploring the moon and Mars.

Between the shuttles' retirement in 2010 and the first manned flight of the new vehicle by 2014, the United States will have no way to send humans into space. Russia and the other countries taking part in the space station will be responsible for delivering crews.

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