NASA officials say eight or nine pieces of ice or foam broke away from space shuttle Endeavour's external tank during its climb to orbit today, but it's too soon to tell if any could be serious."Some of it doesn't concern us, some of it you just can't speculate on right now," said Mike Moses, shuttle launch integration manager, at a post-launch news conference at Kennedy Space Center.
Endeavour blasted off at 6:03 p.m. on its sixth launch attempt since June 13.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations, said at least two or three events that occured in the first two minutes, 15 seconds of flight would be of greatest concern. That's when debris can hit the orbiter with the most force.
Flight directors in Houston radioed to the crew that one strike about 105 seconds into flight hit tiles on the edge of the starboard wing near where it meets the fuselage.
The area called the "chine" is not as critical as wing leading edge panels, and the strike appeared to be less significant than one Atlantis suffered in May in the same area, which was cleared as a concern for re-entry through the atmosphere.
"I'm sure we'll get a good chance for all of us to get a good look at that," mission commander Mark Polansky replied.
Gerstenmaier said several white marks visible on an area of black heat shielding tiles toward the front of Endeavour's belly were likely only nicked surface coating.
"The issues will be at the back of the vehicle," he said, adding that those areas would be photographed in detail when Endeavour performs a backflip just before docking at the International Space Station on Friday.
He said today's good lighting conditions probably enabled NASA to see more debris than during recent missions.
"We probably saw the tank much better than we have on several of the past flights when they were evening launches," he said.
On Thursday, Endeavour's crew will begin a standard inspection of the orbiter's reinforced carbon-carbon nose and wing leading edges, using an extension boom equipped with laser sensors and cameras.
Then space station residents on Friday will film tiles covering Endeavour's belly when as it does the backflip maneuver 600 feet below.
If engineers decide a more detailed inspection of any damage is needed, it would be done on Flight Day 5.
Endeavour has completed an engine burn to adjust its orbit as it begins a two-day chase of the station. The crew will go to sleep at 12:03 a.m.
Today's launch ensured the crew can carry out its full 16-day mission, which includes five spacewalks. A launch Thursday - the last chance before July 26 - would have resulted in the last spacewalk being cut.
Endeavour astronauts crew will install the final piece of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's science lab called Kibo, or "hope," which the agency says has cost $2.5 billion to develop.
They'll also repace a set of solar array wing batteries and stow critical spare parts.
Astronaut Tim Kopra will join the station's crew of six, replacing Koichi Wakata, who will return to Earth on Endeavour.
Endeavour's landing at KSC is planned at 10:45 a.m. EDT July 31.
3 comments:
I have to believe this kind of thing happened all the time before the Columbia accident, and probably more so since how they're doing everything possible to prevent it. (Unless this is all due to the more environmentally-friendly foam NASA was pretty much forced to use.)
This tank was filled seven times. I wonder what effect this had on the foam?
I wonder what effect all that time spent outside between sitting on the pad for the Hubble mission and then the month delay had?
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