Live at KSC: Engineering showdown

7:37 P.M. EDT: The Orbiter Project Office has completed its presentation, and managers now are holding a post-review discussion. The news conference now is scheduled for no earlier than 8:30 p.m. EDT.

6:15 P.M. EDT: The NASA Engineering and Safety Center, which is recommending that NASA replace three suspect wing panels on Discovery prior to flight, just finished its pitch to senior agency managers and administrators. A 10-minute break was called. Next up: The Orbiter Project Office from Johnson Space Center in Houston, which believes the slight defects in coating on the panels will not jeopardise the shuttle or its crew. It's unclear how long its presentation will take, and there is a chance that NASA will put off a launch-date decision until tomorrow. The post-FRR news conference now is scheduled for No Earlier Than 7 p.m., but it's unlikely at this point to take place until 8 p.m. or later. Stay tuned.

5:50 P.M. EDT UPDATE: The post-FRR news conference now is no earlier than 6:30 p.m. You can watch the news conference live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click to link below the image above, or the one below the Live NASA TV Webcast headline to the right, to launch our NASA TV viewer. And refresh this page for periodic updates.

5:11 P.M. EDT UPDATE: The STS-120 Flight Readiness Review is continuing here at the Kennedy Space Center as managers move toward making a decision on whether to launch Discovery and seven astronauts as planned a week from today. They still are debating the wing panel issue, and a post-FRR news briefing now is being pushed back to No Earlier Than 6 p.m.

4:09 P.M. EDT UPDATE: NASA and contractor managers and engineers began debating the wing panel issue at 3:15 p.m. EDT, and it appears as if the discussion will be a lengthy one. We're told that a news conference at 5 p.m. is "optimistic." We're thinking it will be closer to 6 p.m. A reminder: You can watch the news conference live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click to link below the image above, or the one below the Live NASA TV Webcast headline to the right, to launch our NASA TV viewer. And refresh this page for periodic updates.

3 P.M. EDT UPDATE: Senior NASA managers still are meeting in the STS-120 Flight Readiness Review here at Kennedy Space Center, and as of 2:50 p.m., they still had not gotten to the big issue of the day -- whether to fly Discovery and its seven astronauts despite a recommendation from a safety panel to replace three wing panels that have slight defects. The post-FRR news conference now is slated for No Earlier Than 4 p.m. EDT.

12:30 P.M. EDT UPDATE: The Flight Readiness Review broke for lunch before taking up the issue of whether to delay Discovery's Oct. 23 launch in order to fix tiny cracks in the wings' leading edges. The NASA team is expected to announce a decision late this afternoon.

NASA contractors will stow spacesuits aboard Discovery at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A today while senior managers decide whether or not to launch the shuttle with suspect wing panels.

Discovery and a crew of seven astronauts remain scheduled for launch at 11:38 a.m. Oct. 23. A Go/No-Go decision on whether to proceed with launch preparations and pick up the launch countdown is expected by mid-afternoon -- at the conclusion of the STS-120 Flight Readiness Review.

In what will be a vigorous engineering showdown, NASA shuttle program managers will lay out the flight rationale for proceeding with launch despite small defects on three wings panels -- two on the orbiter's right wing and one on the left.

Shuttle engineers and managers say the defects are so insignificant that they would not allow hot gasses to blowtorch through the wing during atmospheric reentry -- a potential repeat of the 2003 Columbia accident that killed seven astronauts.

Live NASA TV coverage of a post-FRR news conference will be webcast here in The Flame Trench. The briefing is scheduled for NET (No Earlier Than) 3 p.m. EDT. You can follow all the action by clicking on the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.