Shuttle fuel tank now at Port Canaveral

The barge carring the newest space shuttle fuel tank has arrived at Port Canaveral after leaving New Orleans on Saturday. It must get through the locks and will move north up the Banana River before heading toward the turn basin at the heart of Kennedy Space Center, where the tank is expected to be unloaded this evening.

This fuel tank is unlike any that has flown before. It does not have two long pieces of insulating foam that previously protected cables and pipes that run up the side of the tank. A large piece of foam from that area fell off Discovery's tank during its launch last summer, missing the orbiter but raising fears of another Columbia-type accident. NASA is still conducting wind-tunnel tests and analysis to verify that the modification is safe to fly.