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NASA Still Aiming For July Flight For Shuttle
Washington (AFP) Apr 28, 2006 The US space agency said Friday it will stick with a plan to resume shuttle launches in July and not carry out extra safety changes to the elderly remaining vessel. "We are continuing to work toward the July 1 launch opportunity," said National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shuttle manager Wayne Hale. "We have a huge amount of work ahead of us but we have a good plan." NASA grounded its shuttles after a piece of foam came off the shuttle Discovery in July 2005, which had been the first flight since the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003. A piece of foam that came off an external fuel tank and pierced the protective skin caused Columbia to burn up and disintegrate as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere. Hale said that debris coming off the external tank remains "a serious concern" for NASA engineers. He told a press conference that changes had been made to the fuel tanks but that experts had then found a new way that foam could be lost. NASA has carried out the "largest aerodynamic change" to the shuttle since it first started flying and Hale admitted that the agency remains anxious about future flights. The problem is with ice frost ramps on the fuel tank. "There was a strong, concerted opinion from several folks that we should wait until we have a good design on the ice frost ramps and then change them before we go flying," Hale said. But engineers have concluded that it is still safe to fly until more major changes are made, he added.
Source: Agence France-Presse Related Links Shuttle at NASA 
NASA Tests Updated Rocket Motor For Shuttle
Huntsville AL (SPX) May 1, 2006NASA technicians said Friday they successfully tested an updated version of the rocket motor for the space shuttle's twin solid-fuel boosters at a Utah test facility. The new flight-support motor, designated FSM-12, burned approximately 123 seconds during the test, or the same amount of time each rocket motor on the reusable boosters must burn during an actual shuttle launch. |
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