After examining images of heat shielding tiles for signs of damage, NASA managers have cleared shuttle Discovery for landing pending a final inspection before the shuttle plunges back through Earth's atmosphere. "After fully analyzing the data, we've determined that the focused inspection is not required," flight communicator Greg Johnson radioed from Houston to shuttle commander Lee Archambault.
"Thank you very much, that's absolutely great news, and we look forward to seeing the reworked timeline," Archambault said.
Analysts were looking at a damaged tile on the bottom-rear section of the orbiter's left wing, but determined that it wasn't significant enough to require repair.
The decision not to conduct a more detailed inspection means Discovery's crew could move up the deployment of the station's newest set of solar arrays from Sunday to Friday.
That's if installation of the Starboard 6 truss holding the packed solar arrays goes as planned during a spacewalk Thursday.
Discovery will still conduct its standard late inspection procedure after it undcocks from the station March 25, repeating the inspection on the shuttle's wing leading edges and nose that was performed Monday before docking.
They'll be looking for damage that could have been caused by micrometeriods or orbital debris during the mission. Inspections so far checked for debris damage that could have occurred during launch.
Those surfaces are critical because sections of the orbiter are exposed to temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees during re-entry through Earth's atmosphere.
An undetected hole in Columbia's left wing led to the spaceship breaking up on re-entry in 2003, killing a crew of seven astronauts.
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