Wielding the shuttle's 50-foot robot arm, the Atlantis astronauts just grabbed an equally lengthy inspection boom in the ship's cargo bay for an extensive survey of heat-shield components that protect crews from extreme temperatures -- up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit -- encountered during atmospheric reentry.
Tipped with a high-resolution TV camera and two laser sensors, the orbital inspection boom was added to the shuttle's tool kit in the wake of the February 2003 Columbia accident. A 1.7-pound chunk of external tank foam punched a six- to 10-inch hole in the shuttle's left wing 82 seconds after launch. Undetected during a 16-day science mission, the hole allowed hot gasses to blowtorch through the wing during reentry and the ship was ripped apart 207 miles above east Texas -- 16 minutes before a planned landing at Kennedy Space Center five years ago last Friday.
The astronauts aim to get a close-up look at the shuttle's starboard wing and nose cap before taking a lunch break. The ship's port wing will be inspected this afternoon and a survey of the two humplike pods that house the shuttle's twin orbital maneuvering engines will follow.
The heat-shield tiles that line the underside of the orbiter will be examined during the shuttle's final approach to the International Space Station on Saturday.
A huge array of ground tracking cameras and cameras aboard the shuttle itself spotted no obvious signs of major foam losses during an 8.5-minute climb into orbit and then the subsequent jettison of the shuttle's 15-story external tank.
Mission Control reported a loss of at least three pieces of debris around two minutes and 13 seconds into flight. The debris appeared to come off the inboard liquid oxygen feedline just behind a V-shaped metal strut that connects the orbiter and the tank. NASA officials say the foam pieces appeared to be small. An extensive imagery analysis is being done to determine whether the foam might have struck and damaged Atlantis.
You can watch the action unfold live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.
The timing for major mission events can be found in the latest version -- Rev A -- of the STS-122 NASA TV schedule. Click here to see it and save a copy: NASA TV Schedule.
The detailed timeline for today's inspection work -- and messages beamed up to the crew from Mission Control -- are here in the Flight Day 2 Execute Package: FD2 Execute Package.
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