Technicians at Kennedy Space Center are about two-thirds done with modifications to support beams on Discovery's tank, NASA reports. Sixty-one of 94 beams called "stringers" on the tank's mid-section, or intertank, have been bolstered with metal strips intended to keep them from cracking when the tank is fueled or during flight.
"The work is progressing very well down at the Cape," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, told reporters earlier this week.
Cracks on five separate stringers have been repaired since the first was found Nov. 5 after a scrubbed launch attempt.
Discovery is tentatively targeted to roll back out to launch pad 39A from the Vehicle Assembly Building on Feb. 1 for a targeted Feb. 24 blastoff to the International Space Station.
NASA officials plan to meet Feb. 18 at KSC for a follow-up flight readiness review to set an official launch date. The six-person crew would be expected to arrive around Feb. 20.
Also this week, technicians mated the external tank that will fly with Endeavour in April to a set of solid rocket boosters inside the assembly building.
That tank has already been inspected and found to have no cracked stringers, but a tanking test could be performed in late March to see how the stringers respond to the stress of cryogenic propellants being loaded. The mission is targeted to launch April 19.
IMAGE: Repair work to space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank continued in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 18. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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