Space Shuttle to Receive Emegency Repairs

Tycow writes "The BBC are reporting that Discovery needs emergency repairs - dangling material has been spotted on the belly of the shuttle, and NASA are worried they could cause overheating on re-entry. 'Nasa is concerned the dangling material - called gap fillers - could cause part of the shuttle to overheat as it re-enters the atmosphere.The type of repairs being planned have never been conducted by astronauts on a spacewalk before.'"

Tough Cloth

[ranson]

No it won't burn away, the cloth is ceramic-coated with the same material as the thermal tiles on the orberter belly; they can withstand thousands of degrees farenheit. The protrusions will break away some, but in past landings, they have measured protrusions of at least one half inch AFTER the craft has landed and the protusion was manipulated by the landing. There was no way to know how big the protrusions were prior to landing because they couldn't examine the craft to the level of detail they can post-Columbia.

Far More Informative (Detailed) Links

[Buran]

Spaceflight Now | STS-114 Shuttle Report | Shuttle mission extended to give bonus day at station [spaceflightnow.com]

Spaceflight Now | STS-114 Shuttle Report | NASA gives go-ahead to spacewalk repair work [spaceflightnow.com]

(and the headline says "Emegency" -- someone fix that, please)

Re:Tough cloth

[ranson]

(Sorry I pressed the wrong reply button the first time i posted this response) No it won't burn away, the cloth is ceramic-coated with the same material as the thermal tiles on the orberter belly; they can withstand thousands of degrees farenheit. The protrusions will break away some, but in past landings, they have measured protrusions of at least one half inch AFTER the craft has landed and the protusion was manipulated by the landing approach. There was no way to know how big the protrusions were prior to landing because they couldn't examine the craft to the level of detail they can post-Columbia.

Re:Emergency?

[Buran]

It is an emergency task because it was not planned ahead of time. It was not on the manifest and is being done in order to correct a fault that will either cause loss of mission or loss of vehicle.

The astronaut will be outside the orbiter standing in a foot restraint mounted to the end of the space station's robotic arm.

Re:Paranoia.

[rhadamanthus]

30% on the tile. 80% at mach 19 early boundary layer transition on the WLE.

My source is my job. :)

Re:Certainly not a Military Budget

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraq adventure is costing American citizens $US 1 billion per day ... and they've been there for years now.

That's too high by a factor of about five. The National Priorities Project is claiming a total of $204.6 billion [costofwar.com], for a little under three years (which is to say, about a thousand days). Your number would see them spending a cool trillion in that time.

They're still spending way too much, of course, but let's not make up silly numbers.

Re:EPA destoyed Columbia and grounds Shuttle Fleet

[DerekLyons]

Very simply under Clinton the EPA refused to let NASA use Freon to apply the foam to the H2 tank.

[sigh] 'The Lie that Will Not Die' raises it's hoary head again... Once more into the breach.

The 'new' foam is only used on acreage foam. The hand sprayed/sculpted foam (which killed Columbia and produced the big scary chunk after SRB sep on the current flight) is still the old freon blown foam. This is very plainly spelled out in the CAIB report and recent NASA press releases.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/28/93055 .shtml

This story is completely contradicted by the CAIB report - furthermore this graph/image [chron.com] plainly shows that NASA *has* been making progress in reducing foam shedding/tile damage caused by the 1998 switch to 'enviromentally friendly foam'.

The real reason isn't because it's an emergency!

[BritImp]

I spoke with a guy from the Mission Management Team (MMT) tonight here in Cape Canaveral. He confirmed that such small pieces of gap filler are not expected to affect the creation of the barrier layer during re-entry, and so do not pose a threat to the orbiter.

The real reason for this 'repair' is because this whole mission is to "test orbiter repair techniques" - and these virtually irrelevant pieces of gap filler provide an unexpected, but very fortunate opportunity to try a real repair technique out in a relatively safe and controlled fashion.

NASA doesn't yet know if it's even possible to have an astronaut perform repair-type work on the underbelly of the orbiter - they think it would be possible, but they have no hard data to say it can be done.

But these small bits sticking out give them the perfect excuse to go test it and get some real-world experience on the issue.

If it looks like the astronaut might damage some of the Thermal Protection System tiles down there, they'll just terminate the repair attempt and fly home as-is. If not, they'll demonstrate that astronauts can go under an orbiter and perform repair tasks down there safely and without harming the TPS.

But I'll bet you'll hear the popular press making too much out of this as usual...

Re:Paranoia.

[Kaboom13]

The problem is you'd have to build not just a rocket platform, but all the facilities required to retrofit and prepare the shuttle for launch. Go down to Florida and look at the vehicle assembly building and understand what you are asking. All of this would have to be out in the middle of a desert at 4k altitude. Then you'd have to convince thousands of the best engineers and scientists and techinicians (who are already payed less then they would get in the private sector) to move to a desert in Chile. The location in Florida chosen was a very practical decision at the time, and remains so. The area around KSC is only a swamp because NASA likes it that way, they carefully maintain a wild-life preserve there to keep a safety buffer between the rockets and the public. The threat from ice might be reduced but a new element of sand storms and other desert weather problems would be created. KSC was built in the 1960's(and was already in use by the military in the 50's), when off-shoring rockets was not a serious option. The capital investment to move now could just as easily build new shuttles or upgrade the old one's with electric heaters (as the design originally called for). I may be biased, I am a native Floridian and have always enjoyed getting to visit KSC and am proud to have the facility in my state. But the reality is if you want to look for government pork, look not at KSC but Houston. The NASA headquarters was created and maintaned there purely as a nod to a powerful senator representing the aerospace industry.

Re:Paranoia.

[Buran]

The ice build-up on the ET which is referred is caused by moisture in the air condensing onto the extremely cold surface. Look at photos of Saturn 5 rocket launches that take place in the summer (the most famous one being right in the middle of July when it's hot hot hot) and you'll still see the ice falling away from the vehicle as it lifts off -- that's from the cryogenics used as propellant.

It wasn't a danger with the Saturn 5 because it was a vertical stack without a fragile crew module on the side of the stack where it could be hit by debris. As long as it kept going up, there wasn't anything to worry about because the entire rocket would either end up at the bottom of the ocean, circling the Sun, crashed into/left on the Moon, or burned up in the atmosphere. The only part that had to face reentry heat was protected throughout the entire mission and only exposed in the last hour or two before entry.

Re:High Risk - Better Call Moscow

[Seraphim1982]

NASA did such a good job protecting our astronauts, we lost only three men prior to Challenger, and those three were on the ground when they died.
What are you talking about?
The US lost seven astronauts durring the Apollo program alone:
Elliott See
Charles Bassett
Theodore Freeman
Clifton Williams
Virgil I. Grissom
Ed White
Roger B. Chaffee

We also lost several other astronauts who were working on other projects, includeding Michael J. Adams and Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr.

The US also came very close to killing:
The Apollo 13 crew (Jim Lovell, John Swigert & Fred Haise) both durring the launch, and the famous explosion.
The Apollo Soyuz Test Project crew (Deke Slayton, Thomas Stafford & Vance Brand)

Re:again, the waste that is manned space flight

[TopSpin]

Of course, the fanatical believers

Ad hominem

in manned space flight would never even consider that this shows the monstrous demerits and grotesque waste

Our species is trying to figure out how to do this. It's hard. It takes time and costs lives and great treasure. Fifty years from now some nameless mech will be strapped to the side of a cracked hull trying to patch a hole with a Shuttle derived glue gun.

Take the long view. It's easier on the blood pressure.

of manned flight versus unmanned.

There is no versus. Cassini is filling basements full of storage devices with Saturn and its moons. Deep Impact's primary objective was fulfilled only one month ago. In 2003, WMAP (and COBE before it) nailed the age of the universe to within a couple hundred million years. CLOVER and the Planck Surveyor will improve on this. Gravity Probe B is concluding its mission in August. NOAA-N launched in May. Spitzer (2003) and Chandra (1999) are both functioning well. Here is a page [nasa.gov] full of on-going unmanned missions you probably can't even identify.

GOES-N launches in 3 days. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is launching in 6 days. CALIPSO goes up next month. STEREO, ST5, GOES-O, AIM, THEMIS, Pluto New Horizons and Dawn are all launching in 2006. Phoenix launches in 2007.

There is no verses. We do BOTH. We have the means and we're using it, regardless of what fools like you think you know.