Discovery in Space EDIT: Shuttles Grounded!

Space shuttle Discovery has finally been launched yesterday more than one week after being grounded due to a faulty sensor in the main fuel tank. This time around, after intense troubleshooting, the sensor showed no sign of malfunction and the countdown proceeded as planned.
Space Shuttle Discovery's Liftoff

Inspections of Discovery’s heat shield began this morning, using an infrared laser camera to detect any defect in the ceramic tiling on the bottom of the shuttle. It can detect any inconsistency larger than an eraser on the top of a pencil. If something threatening for the shuttle is discovered, it will dock to the International Space Station (ISS) and will wait for shuttle Atlantis to launch and bring some repair material or, in the worst case scenario, to bring back the Discovery astronauts to safety and jettison the damaged spaceship. Needless to say that it will take a whole lot of damage to execute this last resort plan.

Debris Flying off the Main Tank

During the launch, some minor damage was reported on the shuttle. Footage from one of the many cameras monitoring the launch showed minor damage to heat-protective tiles near the nose landing gear and an unexplained piece of debris falling away from the exterior fuel tank. There was also a piece of a protective tile that flew off the shuttle. The debris apparently did not strike the shuttle, but inspection is going on with extra scrutinity. NASA also told the briefing that it had noticed dents in the shuttle’s nose caused by birds that hit it during the lift-off. You can read the latest mission status report on the NASA website.

EDIT on July 27th: NASA has decided to ground all the shuttles because of the huge foam debris that detached from the main tank during the launch. We can see this on the picture to the right. All space flights are grounded indefinitely until they figure out a way to fix this dangerous problem that caused the loss of space shuttle Columbia, on February 1, 2003.

July 27th, 2005 | Physics

2 comments

[...] In 2005, we have seen the return of the Space Shuttle, a year and a half after Columbia’s disaster. The shuttle was launched, but upon analysing the images of the launch, NASA engineers have spotted several pieces of foam coming off from the main tank. They didn’t hit the thermal shielding of the shuttle, but NASA announced that the shuttles will be grounded until further notice, at least until this problem is ruled out. It sounds like the end of the space shuttle program which yielded many great missions, but now needs to make place for some better spatial transportation. It’s only a shame that it was not more planned a little bit earlier… Oh yes, the shuttle came back to Earth without problem. Read more about it here. Posted by Julien Marchand on December 21st, 2005 @ 10:53 PM • Filed under Science, 2005 in review [...]

Pingback by Konquest Online » 2005 Science in review - Science and Technology News — December 21, 2005 @ 11:10 pm

[...] During the launch of Discovery in July, the NIST used radars to track and detect debris flying off the shuttle in order to evaluate potential hazards. During the ascent to orbit of the orbiter, it was illuminated by a radar in order to see any pieces that could induce a risk. But that’s not the new part of the study. NASA was concerned that the radar illumination would interfere with the electronics onboard Discovery. [...]

Pingback by Konquest Online » Safely Tracking the Shuttle’s Debris — September 13, 2005 @ 10:04 am