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Space

Shuttle docks with space station

Safety inspections so far indicate that Discovery suffered less damage on launch than in many previous flights, NASA says.

By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published July 29, 2005

The space shuttle Discovery caught up with the international space station Thursday and turned an elegant backward somersault, displaying the orbiter's underside for pictures that will help mission controllers explore for damage.

The photographs and videos taken by astronauts aboard the space station are part of a process designed to check whether falling foam could have damaged the spacecraft in the same way the doomed Columbia orbiter was damaged in 2003.

Commander Eileen Collins, who pulled off the carefully orchestrated and unprecedented backflip maneuver, then docked Discovery flawlessly with the station.

The acrobatics underscored that there is more for this crew to do than resupply the international space station; the astronauts also are helping to check the condition of their own craft, to make sure it and other space shuttles are safe enough to keep flying.

NASA officials want to check for any holes or cracks that could cause Discovery to break apart as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere for its scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on Aug. 7.

So far, officials say they have found little to worry about, despite word late Thursday that a very small piece of foam from the external fuel tank might have hit the shuttle during takeoff. Officials said it appeared not to have done any damage. The docking maneuver could not have been smoother.

"We're looking forward to seeing you guys," Collins told station commander Sergei Krikalev of Russia when the shuttle was a little more than 5,000 feet from the station. "Your space station looks absolutely beautiful from the outside."

Krikalev and the station's American astronaut, John Phillips, greeted the Discovery crew with hugs, bread and salt, a Russian good luck tradition. The two men had reached the space station earlier via a Russian spaceship. Discovery is carrying tons of much-needed supplies, including a replacement gyroscope that will help steer the station.

While the astronauts orbited Earth, NASA officials spent more time on Thursday talking about safety. They decided this week to ground the space shuttles from future flights until they can understand why a large chunk of foam fell off the external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch. The chunk missed hitting Discovery, but raised fears of another Columbia-type incident in the future.

Deputy shuttle manager Wayne Hale said such decisions are part of flying a complex ship into space. "The shuttle is an experimental aircraft ... every time we fly, every time there's a flight anomaly, that's got to be resolved."

As NASA officials discussed ways of making sure shuttles don't suffer disaster again, the astronauts were going about their tasks on board Discovery and the station. In spite of some of the debate on Earth, former astronauts don't think the crew will be worried.

Astronauts are trained to focus on tasks at hand and compartmentalize anything distracting, said Winston Scott, who flew aboard space shuttles in 1996 and 1997. That's similar to his training as a Navy pilot, said Scott, a retired captain.

"You're flying an airplane and something goes wrong, you still have to fly an airplane," he said.

Scott, who is now executive director of the Florida Space Authority, remembers one spacewalk in which he looked at the brilliant blue orb of Earth and felt overwhelmed, "kind of a weird space vertigo, I guess you'd call it."

So he told himself, "tune out the Earth, tune out the rest of outer space." He went back to looking at the satellite he and colleagues were retrieving.

Norm Thagard blasted into space five times, spent more than 140 days in orbit and never really worried, he said.

Except once. It was May 4, 1989, three flights after the Challenger space shuttle blew up, and "I remember having a brief period where I basically asked myself, "Why am I doing this again?"'

Before the countdown ended, "the old excitement came back again" and he rode happily into the heavens. "I've always had a childlike faith that everything will work out okay, and so far it has," said Thagard, now an associate dean at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in Tallahassee.

The other reason Discovery's crew probably won't be too troubled by this week's shuttle news is that much of it is good for them, the former astronauts said. At a briefing late Thursday afternoon, NASA officials called Discovery "a clean vehicle" that appeared to suffer less damage on launch than in many previous flights.

They said they still are checking for damage. Officials said their observations revealed a small piece of foam that may have flown into Discovery's right wing. However, it weighed less than 2 ounces and was considered too small to cause damage. Sensors that were placed did not show any sign of impact.

Frederick "Rick" Hauck, who was commander of the first space shuttle mission after the 1986 Challenger disaster, said the fact that the big chunk of foam didn't hit Discovery makes the astronauts feel good.

"I'd say in the near term they're reassured, because once again, with no apparent damage to the orbiter, they're going to get home just fine."

The grounding of the shuttles for future missions probably won't concern the astronauts much now, he said.

"I think that they're so busy up there that thinking about "What does this mean for the program?' probably doesn't occupy them too much," Hauck said.

Curtis Krueger can be reached at krueger@sptimes.com or 727 893-8232.

THURSDAY: Shuttle docked with international space station.

TODAY: Will lift a module full of supplies out of shuttle and attach it to the space station.

SATURDAY: Spacewalk to test techniques for repairing holes in the shuttle's thermal shielding and do other station work.

A video of Discovery's backflip maneuver can be viewed at www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html

[Last modified July 29, 2005, 01:11:56]