Next shuttle flight delayed until February - Summary

Fri, 03 Dec 2010

Washington - The repeatedly delayed final flight of space shuttle Discovery has been pushed back until at least February while NASA engineers conduct tests to discover the cause of cracks in the craft's fuel tank, the space agency said Friday.

NASA has encountered numerous delays over the last month in trying to get Discovery off the ground for its farewell voyage before the shuttle fleet is retired. The mission was scheduled for liftoff in late October before several cracks found on brackets on the external tank prompted multiple delays.

The fear is that the cracks could allow insulating foam to break off and damage the shuttle during liftoff. In 2003, broken foam damaged the exterior of the shuttle Columbia, causing it to disintegrate while re-entering the atmosphere. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.

Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of space operations, said NASA had not yet been able to find the cause of the cracks and had reached a point where the space agency needed to conduct tests to pinpoint the problem.

NASA will conduct two tests: building a mockup of that part of the fuel tank to see if engineers can reproduce the cracks to determine a root cause and also filling the fuel tank while monitoring it carefully for stress and the development of further cracks.

The aging space shuttle fleet is set to be retired after nearly three decades in service. Some of the shuttle's tasks are to be shifted to commercial space flight providers, while NASA is to develop a spacecraft that can travel to more distant destinations.

Though the shuttle spacecraft themselves are reused after each flight, the external liquid fuel tank is new for each flight, meaning the age of the fleet is unrelated to the current problem.

"We have hit a point where there is no obvious answer to what occurred," shuttle program manager John Shannon said.

After Discovery's last trip, just one more shuttle flight is scheduled, and shuttle managers hope to add an additional flight.

The launch window for Discovery will begin February 3, likely pushing back the last scheduled flight of Endeavor to April and an as yet unscheduled additional flight to the summer if NASA is able to secure money for another launch.

Discovery is to deliver the last major US piece of the ISS along with a host of supplies, including a human-like robot, known as Robonaut 2 (R2), the first-such robot ever sent to space.

The International Space Station will continue to operate with no problems despite the delay, as Discovery was not set to carry aloft many daily food supplies and other consumables, ISS manager Mike Suffredini said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/356481,delayed-february-summary.html.