NASA pushes next shuttle launch to March 2006, to examine foam peel-off critically |
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Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:05
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WASHINGTON: NASA announced that it is delaying the next space shuttle launch to March 2006 so that it can fix the problem of the foam flying off the external fuel tank.
NASA is still investigating why a large piece of foam got disentangled from Discovery's fuel tank during launch last month, said Bill Gerstenmaier, the space agency's newly-appointed associate
administrator for space operations, at a news conference.
The announcement to postpone the next launch came amidst charges by seven members of an oversight panel that NASA is compromising safety while rushing with the next launch.
Said Gerstenmaier:"From an overall standpoint we think really March 4th is the time frame we are looking at."
The foam peel-off was first experienced during the Columbia launch, which led to damage of its wing and its ultimate disintegration while returning, killing the seven crew members. Discovery too had the problem, but it returned to the earth successfully after a 14-day sojourn in space. NASA is now engaged in finding out a permanent solution to the problem.
Gerstenmaier said last week NASA scientists had identified the major areas where foam came off the tank. "We are starting to make some sense of the data ... what the mechanism for the foam loss was," he said.
NASA is planning to put Atlantis in orbit next to take supplies to the International Space Station. It will not now have to do back-to-back missions to carry a heavy truss to the station, said Gerstenmaier. Discovery had provided enough food, water and other crucial supplies to the space station, that will last till the end of the year.
Atlantis is expected to make two missions in a row and Gerstenmaier said NASA will take the intervening period to prepare Discovery for the next flight.
Meanwhile, Russia will fly cargo and crew to the station, though it cannot transport large pieces.
NASA's administrator Michael Griffin told the news conference that the agency is working towards expeditious but orderly retirement of the shuttle system over the next five years. "We are going to use the shuttle system between now and then to assemble the space station," he said.
He admitted the agency made a big mistake in not looking at the foam issue sooner. "We in NASA didn't look in detail at foam shedding from the tank for 113 flights and shame on us."
Discovery, now at Edwards Air Force Base in California is taking a flight back to the Kennedy Space Center Friday atop a modified Boeing 747 aircraft.
President George Bush has ordered hat the shuttle fleet should be retired by 2010 and replaced with a new generation of space vehicles. The seven expert members of the oversight panel had said NASA skipped some safety improvements to the space shuttle because it tried to meet unrealistic launch dates for the first flight since the Columbia tragedy. It also said poor leadership made the Discovery's launch more complicated, expensive and prolonged than it needed to be.
However, the 220-page assessment, by a 26-person committee of experts, is mostly positive, except for the critique by the seven members.
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