NEWS: NASA halts shuttle flights over tank foam problem - Reuters

NASA halts shuttle flights over tank foam problem

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ace_shuttle_dc

By Irene Klotz

HOUSTON (Reuters) -
NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet on Wednesday after learning that
large chunks of insulating foam broke off Discovery's external fuel
tank during launch, an echo of the problem that doomed sister ship
Columbia and its crew 2 1/2 years ago.

The seven Discovery astronauts were not in danger and the falling
debris does not appear to have hit or damaged their ship, which took
off on Tuesday on a 12-day mission to the
International Space Station, deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale
said.

But NASA said it would launch no more shuttles until it resolves the
recurring problem of debris falling off during blastoff.

"Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again," shuttle program
manager Bill Parsons said. "I don't know how long that is right now.
We have a lot of work in front of us to figure that out and we're
going to go do that."

Images of the shuttle's tank, which was jettisoned as planned just
before Discovery slipped into orbit, show at least three areas where
large chunks of insulation foam came off, Hale and Parsons said.

The finding was troubling because a 1.67-pound (0.75-kg) piece of foam
insulation broke off Columbia's external tank during its launch on
Jan. 16, 2003, and gouged a hole in the ship's wing.

As Columbia attempted to fly through the Earth's atmosphere for
landing 16 days later, superheated gases blasted into the breach and
tore the ship apart, killing the seven astronauts on board.

NASA has since spent more than $1 billion improving the tank and
adding other safety upgrades. Discovery's flight was the space
agency's first manned mission since the Columbia accident and was to
be the first of two to test the new gear.

"We thought we were safe to fly as is," Parsons said. "Obviously we
were wrong."

The largest of the three missing chunks of foam was about the same
size as the one that hit Columbia, but "the video clearly shows that
it fell away and did not strike the orbiter," Parsons said.

Engineers were also looking at two areas on the shuttle's belly where
pieces of the ship's heat-resistant tile were missing.

Discovery was on schedule to dock at the International Space Station
on Thursday to deliver critical supplies and practice heat shield
repair techniques during a series of spacewalks.

The Discovery astronauts spent Wednesday inspecting their ship with
the shuttle's new laser-scanning boom and will be asked to have
another look at the suspect areas on Thursday.

Members of the space station crew were to take additional pictures of
Discovery during a specially designed flip maneuver prior to docking.

Preliminary assessments are that Discovery will be safe to land on
Aug. 7, Hale said. He and Parsons said that unlike during Columbia's
ill-fated mission, NASA has a team of 200 engineers assessing the
shuttle's condition and more inspections on tap.

Atlantis had been scheduled to launch on the next shuttle mission in
September to resume construction of the International Space Station
before the shuttle fleet is retired at the end of 2010.

Rusty wrote:

Images of the shuttle's tank, which was jettisoned as planned just
before Discovery slipped into orbit, show at least three areas where
large chunks of insulation foam came off, Hale and Parsons said.



_Three_ large pieces of foam?!

Pat