NASA Still Can't Fix Shuttle Wing Damage in Flight

NASA Still Can't Fix Shuttle Wing Damage in Flight

Dec. 11 — By Broward Liston
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA still cannot repair the kind of
damage that doomed the space shuttle Columbia after liftoff, and that
remains the single largest obstacle in returning its remaining
shuttles to flight, an oversight group said on Thursday.

NASA has been working for months to find a way to make in-flight
repairs of damage on the leading edge of a shuttle wing.

It was a collision with some lightweight foam torn from Columbia's
fuel tank about 81 seconds after launch that doomed the shuttle as it
re-entered the atmosphere 16 days later.

No one is sure exactly how large was the hole made in the wing panels
on Columbia because the evidence was destroyed in the crash that
killed all six astronauts aboard. But tests conducted on the ground
under similar circumstances produced a hole 17 inches (43 cm) across
at its widest.

Joseph Cuzzupoli, an aerospace executive and engineering veteran of
both the Apollo and shuttle programs, said the agency hopes to have a
repair plan by March, selecting from three plans the agency has been
studying since last summer.

"I believe it will happen around the March time period that we'll be
able to get a better, clearer feeling for where they're going. They're
working very hard," Cuzzupoli said.

Cuzzupoli, who briefed reporters from the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, is a member the NASA oversight group charged with certifying
that return-to-flight requirements spelled out by the independent
Columbia Accident Investigation Board are in place before another
shuttle flies.

That flight is tentatively scheduled for September, but Richard Covey,
the retired astronaut who co-chairs the group, said any number of
issues, including the wing-panel repairs, could delay the launch.

"It was clear to us that they (shuttle engineers) have some things
that they are still having to work," said Covey. "But they have ways
to work on them and at this point aren't saying they can't make it."

Cuzzupoli also said the space agency would be adding some of-the-shelf
sensors to the wing edges that could detect whether they have been hit
and where, though not the extent of any damage.

NASA's efforts to improve its ability to detect whether the shuttle
has been struck during flight have evolved remarkably since Columbia's
January launch, when engineers watched loops of film sent to Miami for
development and projected against a wall by a noisy old projector.

Not only will computers provide state-of-the-art imaging, but Defense
Department satellites will supplement inspections made by the shuttle
astronauts themselves and photographs taken from the International
Space Station.

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