NASA halted shuttle and International Space Station processing work at Kennedy Space Center today so managers, engineers and technicians could discuss a recent rash of shuttle launch processing accidents.
The two-hour "safety stand down" began at 2 p.m. EST.
Among recent incidents:
Discovery's robot arm was damaged earlier this month when a bridge bucket carrying technicians from a payload bay clean-up site inadvertently struck the crane-like lifting device.
The workers had been cleaning up glass shards from another incident in which a heat lamp was broken.
The 50-foot arm will be shipped back to its manufacturer for repairs.
Also this month, technicians dropped an x-ray film processor onto the body flap of shuttle Endeavour, damaging fragile thermal tiles that protect the ship and its astronaut crews from intense heat during atmospheric reentry.
The body flap safegaurds the shuttle's three main engines during ascent and also helps guide an orbiter during reentry and landing. Extra inspections of the crucial flight control component were ordered.
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
No comments:
Post a Comment