by Playfuls Staff |
28th February 2007
NASA officials have announced that Space Shuttle Atlantis
will roll back to the
Vehicle
Assembly Building
for repair after Monday's hail storm. "This constitutes the worst damage
from hail that we have seen on [more] external tank foam," said Wayne
Hale, manager of the Space Shuttle Program.
Hale said that a number of areas need to be repaired and are
not accessible at the launch pad.
The vehicle's slow journey back to the Vehicle Assembly
Building will take place
over the weekend or early next week. This will give the technicians an opportunity
to give the space shuttle an intensive look at the damage and evaluate what it
will take to repair it.
"It will be about a month before we can talk about
heading back to the launch posture," said Hale, "given the repair
schedule and the ISS requirements.
The next launch window opportunity opens in late April and
extends out to the later part of May.
The two-day Flight Readiness Review at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
will continue in parallel with Kennedy Ground Operations assessment of the
external tank damage.
Before each mission, the review is conducted by top-level
NASA officials, space shuttle program managers, engineers and contractors
approximately two weeks prior to the opening of the launch window. They examine
the readiness of the space shuttle, flight crew and payloads to determine if
everything is set to proceed for launch.
The Atlantis flight crew will return to Kennedy a few days
before the launch of mission STS-117 to the International Space Station.
During the 11-day mission, the six-member crew will install
a new truss segment, retract a set of solar arrays and unfold a new set on the
starboard side of the station. Lessons learned from two previous missions will
provide the astronauts with new techniques and tools to perform their duties.
Commanding the STS-117 crew is Rick Sturckow, a veteran of
two shuttle missions (STS-88, STS-105), while Lee Archambault will be making
his first flight as the shuttle's pilot. Mission Specialists James Reilly
(STS-89, STS-104) and Patrick Forrester (STS-105) will be returning to the
station. Steven Swanson and John Olivas, both mission specialists, join the
crew for their first flight into space.
Source: NASA
