|
|
|
|
|
Final shuttle heat shield inspections performed BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: September 18, 2006 The Atlantis astronauts carried out a final inspection of the shuttle's heat shield today, using a laser on the end of a long boom to look for signs of damage on the ship's nose cap and wing leading edge panels.
"The first one is obviously geared towards any debris which came off during ascent and may have hit the orbiter," commander Brent Jett said in a NASA interview. "There's a second threat to your thermal protection system, and that is from micrometeorite damage. It's a threat we deal with on every mission." Heat shield inspections are carried out using a 50-foot-long boom attached to the end of the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm. A laser scanner and a high-resolution camera are mounted on the end of the orbiter boom sensor system to look for signs of damage to the reinforced carbon carbon material making up the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels. Those areas experience the most extreme heating during re-entry, some 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. "There's an analysis done that gives you the probability of being struck by a micrometeorite," Jett said. "It all depends on what attitude you're flying and what orbit you're flying in. The thought is that if you inspect early in the mission for ascent debris, you might want to inspect late in the mission to see if you've sustained any damage from a micrometeorite hit on the RCC, a critical area of the orbiter." Along with carrying out the heat shield inspection, Jett and his crewmates - pilot Chris Ferguson, flight engineer Dan Burbank, Joe Tanner, Canadian Steve MacLean and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper - also plan to begin initial packing for re-entry and landing Wednesday. Cabin stow will begin in earnest Tuesday, when the astronauts also will test the shuttle's re-entry systems. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time): TIME/EDT DD HH MM EVENT 02:20 AM 08 15 05 Orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS) unberth 03:25 AM 08 16 10 OBSS starboard wing leading edge survey 04:15 AM 08 17 00 Cabin stow begins 04:55 AM 08 17 40 OBSS nose cap survey 06:25 AM 08 19 10 Crew meal 07:25 AM 08 20 10 OBSS port wing leading edge survey 08:00 AM 08 20 45 Mission status briefing on NASA TV 08:55 AM 08 21 40 OBSS berthing 09:30 AM 08 22 15 Robot arm berthing and powerdown 10:15 AM 08 23 00 Laser dynamic range imager downlink 01:20 PM 09 02 05 NC-7 rocket firing 02:15 PM 09 03 00 Crew sleep begins 03:00 PM 09 03 45 Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV 08:28 PM 09 09 13 Progress cargo ship undocks from ISS 10:15 PM 09 11 00 Crew wakeup Atlantis undocked from the space station early Sunday to make way for arrival of the lab's next commander and flight engineer, Mike Lopez-Alegria and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. The Expedition 14 crew members, along with space tourist Anousheh Ansari, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:09 a.m. EDT today aboard the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft. If all goes well, they will dock with the station at 1:24 a.m. Wednesday, just a few hours before Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center. Ansari will return to Earth on Sept. 28 with the station's outgoing crew, Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeff Williams. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, ferried to the station aboard the shuttle Discovery in July, will remain aboard the outpost as part of the Expedition 14 crew until December, when he will return to Earth with the crew of the next shuttle assembly mission.
|
|
|
|
STS-115 patch The official crew patch for the STS-115 mission of space shuttle Atlantis to resume orbital construction of the International Space Station. Choose your store:U.S. - U.K. - E.U. - Worldwide  Current Shuttle Mission Patch  The official embroidered patch for shuttle Atlantis' flight to deliver critical spare equipment to the space station.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STOREAres 1-X Patch  The official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STOREApollo Collage  This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STORE Project Orion  The Orion crew exploration vehicle is NASA's first new human spacecraft developed since the space shuttle a quarter-century earlier. The capsule is one of the key elements of returning astronauts to the Moon.U.S. STOREFallen Heroes Patch Collection  The official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STOREAres 1-X Patch The official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STOREApollo Collage This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.U.S. STOREExpedition 21  The official embroidered patch for the International Space Station Expedition 21 crew is now available from our stores.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STOREHubble Patch  The official embroidered patch for mission STS-125, the space shuttle's last planned service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, is available for purchase.U.S. STOREWORLDWIDE STORE |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
MISSION INDEX INDEX | PLUS | NEWS ARCHIVE | LAUNCH SCHEDULE ASTRONOMY NOW | STORE ADVERTISE © 2009 Spaceflight Now Inc. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
VIDEO:
SUNDAY'S STATUS BRIEFING 