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SPACE CENTER, Houston - A couple short strips of fabric dangling from Discovery's belly may require an unprecedented repair by spacewalking astronauts, if engineers determine there's even a possibility that the problem could endanger the shuttle during descent, NASA said Sunday.
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Teams of experts were scrambling to understand just how serious the problem was, with "strong arguments" raging on what to do, if anything.
The trouble has nothing to do with foam or other launch debris, but rather the accidental slippage of ceramic-fiber cloth used to fill the thin gaps between thermal tiles, which some engineers worry could trigger potentially treacherous overheating during re-entry.
It will be Monday before the analysis is complete and mission managers decide whether to have the crew's two spacewalkers cut or pull the two hanging strips.
If NASA's spacewalking specialists come up with a relatively easy solution, "Why worry? Why would you not just go take care of it?" deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said Sunday evening. "Why should I lose sleep over these gap fillers if we can take care of them that easy?"
Such a spacewalking feat would be a first: In 24 years of shuttle flight, astronauts have never ventured beneath their spacecraft in orbit and have made few repairs to their ship, certainly none of this magnitude.
Discovery and its crew of seven may be perfectly safe to fly back in a week with the drooping strips, officials stressed, as space shuttles have done many times before, although not necessarily with pieces that large.
Hale, in fact, did not think it was that big a deal when he first learned of the problem a few days ago.
"My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that we can live with this," he said. "On the other hand, this is bigger than we've seen before."
One piece is sticking out 1.1 inches between the thermal tiles, the other protrudes at an angle from six-tenths to nine-tenths of an inch. For those areas, far forward near the nose, the general wisdom and flight history indicate that the limit should be a quarter-inch, said flight director Paul Hill.
Hill noted, however, that the quarter-inch measurement was taken following previous re-entries and the intense heat could have burned some of the material off. Discovery's flaws were spotted in orbit — a first — because of all the photography and laser imaging being aimed at normally hard-to-see spots, an outcome of the 2003 Columbia disaster.
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Teams of experts were scrambling to understand just how serious the problem was, with "strong arguments" raging on what to do, if anything.
The trouble has nothing to do with foam or other launch debris, but rather the accidental slippage of ceramic-fiber cloth used to fill the thin gaps between thermal tiles, which some engineers worry could trigger potentially treacherous overheating during re-entry.
It will be Monday before the analysis is complete and mission managers decide whether to have the crew's two spacewalkers cut or pull the two hanging strips.
If NASA's spacewalking specialists come up with a relatively easy solution, "Why worry? Why would you not just go take care of it?" deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said Sunday evening. "Why should I lose sleep over these gap fillers if we can take care of them that easy?"
Such a spacewalking feat would be a first: In 24 years of shuttle flight, astronauts have never ventured beneath their spacecraft in orbit and have made few repairs to their ship, certainly none of this magnitude.
Discovery and its crew of seven may be perfectly safe to fly back in a week with the drooping strips, officials stressed, as space shuttles have done many times before, although not necessarily with pieces that large.
Hale, in fact, did not think it was that big a deal when he first learned of the problem a few days ago.
"My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that we can live with this," he said. "On the other hand, this is bigger than we've seen before."
One piece is sticking out 1.1 inches between the thermal tiles, the other protrudes at an angle from six-tenths to nine-tenths of an inch. For those areas, far forward near the nose, the general wisdom and flight history indicate that the limit should be a quarter-inch, said flight director Paul Hill.
Hill noted, however, that the quarter-inch measurement was taken following previous re-entries and the intense heat could have burned some of the material off. Discovery's flaws were spotted in orbit — a first — because of all the photography and laser imaging being aimed at normally hard-to-see spots, an outcome of the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Read More
