![]() ![]() One of those was STS-118, an August 2007 flight by Endeavour that was commanded by Kelly's twin brother Scott. EDT (GMT-4), that was set aside for such an inspection if needed.įocused inspections have been carried out during four post-Columbia shuttle missions. The shuttle crew's flight plan includes a block of off-duty time Saturday at the beginning of their "day," starting at 12:26 a.m. The question for engineers is how deep the gouges might be, how thick the tiles in question area and what sort of temperatures tiles in those areas experience during re-entry. The third area of interest crosses the hinge line of the right-side inboard elevon, measuring 6.52 inches by 2.32 inches. Another ding downstream of the door measures 3.28 inches by 2.43 inches. One, on the right landing gear door, measures 5.9 inches long and 1.23 inches wide. Nothing obvious could be seen in standard-resolution television views of the rendezvous pitch maneuver that were beamed down from the station in near realtime, but the zoomed-in photos shot by the station astronauts clearly revealed multiple damage sites, including the three highighted by Cain. As usual, the digital photos were downlinked to the Johnson Space Center for analysis. In a procedure that has become routine in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster - a mishap triggered by damage to a wing leading edge panel - astronauts Paolo Nespoli and Catherine "Cady" Coleman, working in the Russian Zvezda command module, snapped hundreds of images of Endeavour's belly tiles using 400-mm and 800-mm telephoto lenses as Kelly guided the ship through a 360-degree rotation. The Space Shuttle – Learn more in our continuously updated special report.Damage across the hingeline of the right inboard elevon. The space agency needs to carry out 11 remaining space station construction missions by September 2010, when the shuttles are set for retirement. NASA is hoping to fly six shuttle missions this year, including the Hubble flight. Without the space station to serve as a safe haven, a shuttle crew visiting the Hubble telescope has few options if their space ship should become too damaged to safely return to Earth.Ĭolumbia was destroyed, and its crew of seven killed, because its heat shield was damaged on lift-off. “Space is getting to be very busy,” Shannon said.Įndeavour’s mission will also include a test of a heat-shield repair technique NASA wants to demonstrate before a servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope in late August or early September. It will launch from Kourou, French Guiana. The debut flight of the European Space Agency’s unmanned spacecraft is scheduled for 2328 EST on 7 March (0428 GMT March 8). The third segment, an outdoor porch for exposing experiments to space, will follow in 2009.ĭuring Endeavour’s flight, Europe’s new cargo ship, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV, will be loitering about 2 km (1.2 miles) from the station, waiting for its turn to berth. ![]() The primary portion of Kibo, which is a Japanese word for “hope,” is being prepared for launch in late May. The shuttle is scheduled to spend two weeks at the space station to install a storage room for Japan’s Kibo laboratory complex and outfit the station’s Canadian-built robot arm with a mechanical hand. The seven-man Endeavour crew includes two of NASA’s most experienced fliers, four rookies and Japan’s Takao Doi, who participated in a shuttle research mission in 1997. “The team has turned around and is ready to go.” “We landed (Atlantis) nine days ago, which is just amazing to me,” said John Shannon, who took over last week as the shuttle programme manager. The shuttle Atlantis returned from a mission to deliver Europe’s Columbus research laboratory to the space station on 20 February. ![]()
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