Nasa extends shuttle mission for repair
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
NASA said it will fix a worrying rip in space shuttle Atlantis' heat shield system and spacewalking astronauts hooked a giant metal truss to the International Space Station last Monday.
The United States space agency's decision to be safe rather than sorry meant Atlantis will stay in space two days more than planned and a fourth spacewalk will be added to the flight.
Nasa does not think the inches-long tear in a thermal blanket near the tail poses a great danger to the shuttle, but deputy shuttle programme manager John Shannon said mission managers were being cautious.
"It was 100 per cent consensus that the unknowns in the engineering analysis and the potential damage ... was not acceptable and we wanted to go and fix it," he said in a briefing at Johnson Space Centre.
Nasa engineers have been eyeing the torn blanket since it was spotted shortly after Atlantis took off last Friday.
If not fixed, the tear could cause heat damage to the shuttle when it returns to Earth on its new landing day, June 21, Shannon said.
Nasa has treated heat shield issues with great caution since Columbia disintegrated during its return home in 2003 after its wing heat shield was damaged during its launch by loose insulating foam from the fuel tank.
The seven astronauts on board were killed.
Reuters
The United States space agency's decision to be safe rather than sorry meant Atlantis will stay in space two days more than planned and a fourth spacewalk will be added to the flight.
Nasa does not think the inches-long tear in a thermal blanket near the tail poses a great danger to the shuttle, but deputy shuttle programme manager John Shannon said mission managers were being cautious.
"It was 100 per cent consensus that the unknowns in the engineering analysis and the potential damage ... was not acceptable and we wanted to go and fix it," he said in a briefing at Johnson Space Centre.
Nasa engineers have been eyeing the torn blanket since it was spotted shortly after Atlantis took off last Friday.
If not fixed, the tear could cause heat damage to the shuttle when it returns to Earth on its new landing day, June 21, Shannon said.
Nasa has treated heat shield issues with great caution since Columbia disintegrated during its return home in 2003 after its wing heat shield was damaged during its launch by loose insulating foam from the fuel tank.
The seven astronauts on board were killed.
Reuters
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