[MilCom] Foam Insulation Flew Off Shuttle

[Chris Corley]

NASA Says Foam Insulation Flew Off Shuttle
July 27, 2005 4:49 PM EDT
SPACE CENTER, Houston - NASA said Wednesday that the mysterious object that
came flying off the shuttle Discovery's fuel tank during liftoff was a
sizable chunk of foam insulation - the very thing that doomed Columbia.

But this time, fortunately, it didn't hit the spacecraft.

Space agency officials also said that a chipped thermal tile on Discovery's
belly does not appear to be a danger, and it cautioned the public against
overreacting to every speck of damage sustained by the shuttle during
liftoff.

NASA expected some debris to fall off during launch. The big question is
whether any of it will mean a risk to the crew. The answer is still a few
days away, NASA said one day after the ship blasted off on the first shuttle
mission since the Columbia tragedy 2 1/2 years ago.

Flight director Paul Hill said it is understandable that people inside and
outside the space agency might be alarmed by any hint of damage to
Discovery's thermal shielding.

"The last flight ended in catastrophe and we lost seven friends of ours
because of damage," Hill said at a news conference. But he added: "We don't
make decisions in spaceflight based on that type of emotion. We make
decisions in spaceflight based on the data, and we're looking at the data."

And based on what they have seen so far, NASA engineers believe the broken
tile is "not going to be an issue," Hill said.

Imagery experts and engineers expect to know by Thursday afternoon whether
the gouge left by the missing 1 1/2-inch piece of thermal tile needs a
second look or, in the worst case, a repair, Hill said. The astronauts have
a 100-foot, laser-tipped crane on board that could determine precisely how
deep the gouge is.

The tile fragment broke off less than two minutes after liftoff Tuesday and
was spotted by a camera mounted on the external fuel tank. It fell off a
particularly vulnerable spot, near the set of doors for the nose landing
gear.

Multiple cameras also captured the chunk of foam flying off the tank but
missing the shuttle. It broke away from a different part of the tank than
the piece that mortally wounded Columbia by striking its wing. After the
accident, the tank was redesigned to reduce the risk of foam insulation
falling off.

If NASA decides to use its new inspection tool to get a 3-D view of the tile
damage, the astronauts will examine the spot on Friday, a day after docking
with the international space station.

On Wednesday, Discovery's astronauts spent nearly six hours using the boom
to inspect Discovery's wings and nose cap for launch damage. The wings and
nose are protected by reinforced carbon panels capable of taking the brunt
of the searing re-entry heat.

Hill said he saw nothing immediately alarming during the laser inspection,
which had been planned long before any damage to Discovery was detected. But
NASA's experts have yet to fully analyze the images.

The inspection was conducted in extra-slow motion, a mere three feet per
minute, to give engineers a good long look. The boom came within five feet
of the shuttle's wings and nose cap.

The astronauts had to be careful not to bang the equipment into the fragile
thermal panels and cause the kind of disaster the boom was designed to
prevent. The task required such precision that three of the astronauts took
turns performing the grueling job.

NASA should have a better grasp of the tile damage after the two space
station residents photograph the approaching Discovery on Thursday.
Discovery will do a slow back flip 600 feet out, so the station astronauts
can zoom in on the shuttle's belly. This unprecedented maneuver was also
planned long before the flight.

The photos taken from the space station should be so good that "you will
almost be able to read the serial numbers on the tiles," Hill said.

After that, if the imagery experts and engineers want even more data on the
broken tile, Hill said, "then by God we're going to take the (boom) down and
we're going to get them more data and that data are going to look like they
were sitting right there in front of the tile with their hands on it, it's
going to be so good."

NASA does not expect to make a final decision until Sunday or so on whether
Discovery can safely return to Earth. That is how long it will take to
analyze all the data from the more than 100 cameras that tracked the
liftoff, scores of sensors embedded in the shuttle wings, the laser
inspection, and pictures from space.

Top NASA managers have stressed for months that they would probably see more
debris than usual falling from Discovery simply because they would be
looking harder this time.

Hill also reminded reporters that space shuttles have frequently landed with
tile damage over the past 24 years. The seriousness depends on how deep the
gouges are and how thick the tile is in the affected area, he said.

Deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale portrayed the current analysis as
vastly superior to what took place during Columbia's mission in 2003. A
chunk of fuel-tank foam insulation pierced Columbia's wing at liftoff and
left a plate-size hole that proved fatal during re-entry two weeks later.

"A few people looked at the pictures, a few people ran some small analysis
that wasn't grounded in much real science and came to the wrong conclusion,"
Hale said. This time, he said, hundreds of people are examining every frame
of the video, and NASA management is focusing on whether the shuttle is safe
to return.