Thermal Breach? NASA Checks Shuttle
Engineers examine photo showing small exposed area in thermal blankets.
HOUSTON, June 9, 2007 — -- It doesn't look like much -- a gap where the thermal blanket onone of the space shuttle Atlantis' orbital rockets is puffed out. Mission Management Team Chairman Jon Shannon says it looks like the stitching just simply pulled out.
But every gap, wrinkle, dent or ding gets a good look when it's on a space shuttle orbiting Earth, and NASA is examining photos and video of the gap to determine if the shuttle may have a problem.
Was the blanket hit by debris during Friday's launch into space? Shannon says engineers won't know for a couple of days until all the video of the launch is retrieved and analyzed.
"The blanket is two inches thick," he said, "and under that blanket is a graphite shell, and inside that are the tanks for the reactants for the orbital maneuvering system."
The astronauts on Atlantis got a good look at the area with thecameras on the end of the shuttle's robotic arm. The video will help engineers analyze the area.
Shannon said if they determine there is a problem, he is prepared to add a fourth spacewalk to the mission to let astronauts go out to the shuttle's tail and fix the blanket.
What concerns engineers at NASA is this: How much of the space shuttle's skin is exposed because of the wrinkled blanket? The heat of re-entry exposes that area of the orbiter to temperatures ranging from 700 to 1,000 degrees.
To figure out the threat, engineers will look back at the effects of re-entry on previous shuttle flights at that particular area. They will start at the beginning, with the first space shuttle flight, STS 1, in April 1981. Several tiles came off in the same area, and Columbia still landed safely.
But Columbia wasn't so lucky in 2003. That year, a 1.67 pound piece of foam that broke off Columbia's external fuel tank hit the orbiter's left wing, creating a hole that allowed super-hot gases to penetrate the wing as the shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
The breach caused the shuttle to break apart over Texas in 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
