Shuttle return delayed until 2005
Space shuttles will not fly again until next year, and when one does lift off on the first post-Columbia mission, another will be on standby for a potential rescue mission.
Nasa’s senior spaceflight officials have decided to push back the next launch to March 2005 because of lingering work and engineering concerns, and picked Discovery to be first up. Atlantis will serve as a rescue craft, if needed.
The space agency had been aiming for a autumn 2004 launch.
“We said, Stop. Let’s go ahead and extend the schedule, and let’s figure out what the right way is to go about” meeting the recommendations of the Columbia accident investigators, Nasa Administrator Sean O’Keefe said.
“We’re not going to be driven by the calendar. This is going to be a milestone-driven event.”
The space agency is struggling to come up with shuttle wing repair kits and inspection booms for astronauts in orbit. Engineers also are still trying to figure out how to keep the fuel-tank foam insulation from breaking off, as a section did during Columbia’s doomed flight, and dealing with corrosion in the rudder speed brakes.
Through extensive testing since the Columbia disaster one year ago, Nasa has discovered that liquefied air or nitrogen probably seeped into a crack or void in the foam and, upon expanding, blew off a big chunk of the insulation, spaceflight chief Bill Readdy said yesterday.
Because of the Columbia tragedy, Nasa decided last month that all shuttles from now on will be devoted to completing the international space station.
That way, the astronauts can inspect and repair their ships at the orbiting outpost and await rescue there if any damage is too grave.
The rescue shuttle will not necessarily be on the launch pad but will be ready to fly to the space station within 45 to 90 days, said shuttle programme manager Bill Parsons. That is how long seven additional astronauts could remain aboard the space station before food, oxygen and other supplies ran out.
Mr Readdy said Nasa could probably put a rescue mission together in as little as 35 days, if necessary.
The shuttle fleet has been grounded and space station construction on hold since Columbia shattered over Texas on February 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
