The Endeavour astronauts are beginning a now-standard orbital inspection of the shuttle's wing leading edges as well as its nosecap -- checkouts aimed at determining whether heat-shield components were damaged during ascent into orbit.
Video beamed back from cameras on the shuttle showed at least eight or nine instances of foam or ice breaking free from Endeavour's external tank during the nine-minute climb into space. Some came from the intertank area of the huge propellant reservoir -- the area that separates the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen vessels with the bottom and top of the tank, respectively.
The video also showed what NASA has termed "cosmetic" damage to shuttle heat-shield tiles in the starboard chine area of the underside of the orbiter. Note the white marks on the black tile on the photo above. NASA managers said the damage is in an area similar to damage seen on the flight in May of shuttle Atlantis but that the damage appears to be of a lesser extent than what engineers saw on the earlier flight.
Wielding a 50-foot boom attached to the end of the shuttle's equally lengthy robot arm, the astronauts will scan U-shaped Reinforced Carbon Carbon panels that serve as thermal armor for both the shuttle's wings as well as its composite carbon nosecap.
The inspection boom is equipped with a television camera to spot damage and laser sensors to determine depth and severity. The sensor data -- along with launch imagery -- will be evaluated by experts on the ground over the next couple of days. If potentially significant problems are detected, the astronauts would carry out a more focused inspection on Sunday.
The damage already noted will not likely be imaged today. It is located in an area on the underside of the orbiter that will be photographed by members of the International Space Station crew during the shuttle's arrival there Friday.
Shuttle mission commander Mark Polansky will guide his ship through a Rotational Pitch maneuver when the shuttle comes within about 600 feet of the station. The nose-over-tail backflip will expose the underside of the orbiter to camera wielding station crew members who will image the entire belly of the shuttle with 800 millimeter and 400 millimeter cameras.
The eight-minute maneuver is a standard, post-Columbia operating procedure on docking day.
Coming up next on NASA TV: An Apollo 11 "roundtable."
Panelists talking about the legacy of Apollo will include:
++Cristina Guidi, deputy director, Constellation Systems Division, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters.
++Roger Launius, senior curator in space history, National Air and Space Museum.
++John Logsdon, Charles A. Lindbergh chair in aerospace history, Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington.
++Craig Nelson, author of "Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon."
++Michael Neufeld, chair of the division of space history, National Air and Space Museum, and author of "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War."
1 comment:
Sounds like a good opportunity to try out some of the patch kits and/or 'tar patch' goop on one of the EVAs that are planned once they reach the ISS.
Rick Steele
Sarasota, Florida
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