by Playfuls Staff |
10th July 2006
The space shuttle Discovery doesn't need repairs and can return to Earth as scheduled, officials at NASA's mission control said Sunday. Mission control informed the crew that the ship's thermal shield is "100 per cent cleared for entry" on July 17. [more]
"Boy, that is great news, that's fantastic," shuttle commander Steve Lindsey responded. "And to get all that done by the end of flight day six ... is just amazing."
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Saturday was concerned about a protruding gap filler between the shuttle's heat shield tiles near the tail. But engineers determined it wasn't necessary to have an astronaut pluck the strip out during a spacewalk. [more]
Officials had already determined that several other suspicious marks on the shuttle's skin - ranging from bird droppings to frayed fabric - posed no danger.
German astronaut Thomas Reiter will remain on the International Space Station through December when Discovery is scheduled to return to the ISS to pick Reiter up.
The crew members say they are pleased with how the mission is going so far. On Sunday, the astronauts continued to move fresh supplies to the ISS. One of the items unloaded was an oxygen device that converts water into enough air for six astronauts.
The cargo is being unloaded from the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module, NASA said at its website. Leonardo is a reusable cargo carrier that was attached to the ISS on Friday. After its more than 16,000 kilogrammes of cargo are unloaded, it will be filled with unneeded station items before returning to Discovery?s payload bay for the trip home.
The astronauts also are preparing for the second of three scheduled space walks on Monday starting at 12:13 pm GMT. It is expected to last six-and-a-half hours. The first space walk to test a robotic arm extension on Saturday was seen as a success.
© 2006 DPA
