Shuttle Is Damaged, but Liftoff Expected Today
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – With the countdown for Discovery in its final hours, NASA was dealt an embarrassing setback yesterday when a window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for launch today.
The mishap was an eerie reminder of the very thing that doomed Columbia 2 1/2 years ago – damage to the spaceship’s fragile thermal shield.
The lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery’s cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery’s launch preparations, Stephanie Stilson, said.
No one knows why the cover – held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds – fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the shuttle’s windows, then removed before liftoff.
Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare in what Ms. Stilson said was a minor repair job.
The cover struck a part of the fuselage that houses one of the engines used by the shuttle to maneuver in orbit. Launch managers were still awaiting an engineering analysis on whether the blow caused any damage to the engine hardware, but Ms. Stilson said she was confident there would be no problems.
Word of the mishap came just two hours after NASA declared Discovery ready to return the nation to space for the first time since the Columbia disaster.
Up until the window cover fell, NASA’s only concern was the weather. Because of thunderstorms in the forecast, the chances of acceptable weather at launch time were put at 60%.
Discovery and its crew of seven were set to blast off at 3:51 p.m. EDT. The last few technical concerns had been resolved yesterday afternoon at one final launch review by NASA’s managers.
“It is utterly crucial for NASA, for the nation, for our space program to fly a safe mission,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said after the meeting. “We have done everything that we know to do.”
The families of the seven astronauts killed during Columbia’s catastrophic re-entry praised the accident investigators, a NASA oversight group, and the space agency itself for defining and reducing the dangers.
