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Shuttle managers next week will recommend launching Discovery on Oct. 23 despite an independent safety group's concerns about tiny cracks in protective coating on critical wing panels.
In a traditional flight readiness review scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center next Tuesday, NASA shuttle chief Wayne Hale will argue that the cracks are too small to enable a catastrophic burn-through during atmospheric reentry.
As part of his rationale to proceed with launch as scheduled, Hale will note that thermographic inspections instituted after the 2003 Columbia accident show that the cracks have not grown in size or defects during the orbiter's last two missions -- STS-121 in July 2005 and STS-116 last December.
Experts from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center -- an independent advisory organization established after the Columbia accident -- this week recommended that NASA replace the panels as a precaution.
Doing so would force NASA to roll the shuttle back to its assembly building, disconnect Discovery from an external tank with attached solid rocket boosters, and return the orbiter to its processing hangar.
The planned launch of the U.S. Harmony module -- and the time-critical construction of the International Space Station -- would be delayed for at least two months.
That would reduce the chance of launching 13 outpost assembly flights and a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission before September 2010, a presidential deadline for station completion and shuttle fleet retirement.
Look for more details in tomorrow's newspaper edition of Florida Today.
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