RSSShuttle's Heat Shield Repaired In-Flight
By Ed Oswald | Published August 3, 2005, 12:12 PM
For the first time in the shuttle's 24-year history, an astronaut performed repairs to the spaceship's underside while in flight. Astronaut Steve Robinson successfully made repairs to the Space Shuttle Discovery's heat shield early Wednesday morning, further ensuring a safe return for the astronauts.
"It looks like this big patient is cured," Robinson radioed back after he was successfully able to pull several loose fiber strips out from behind one of the heat tiles.
While NASA was unsure if the fibers would pose a threat to the ship, the organization is taking no chances after the loss of Columbia and its crew in 2003.
Robinson said the strips, made of ceramic cloth, were easy enough to remove just by pulling on them. NASA had him take along several tools just in case the job would be harder than expected, but they proved unnecessary.
No damage was apparent to any of the protective heat shield tiles after the repairs. Engineers had feared that leaving the fibers on the ship during re-entry could cause unnecessary friction and heat stress, which could have put the astronauts in danger and possibly even lead to the shuttle burning up during re-entry.
Following the success of this spacewalk, another may be scheduled before Discovery lands to fix a problem with insulation around one of the shuttle's windows.
Worries about damage to Discovery first arose after the August 2 launch when loose foam was spotted coming off the fuel tank. The damage repaired Wednesday is not believed to be from foam impacts, NASA said.
Could you elaborate some more on those "clandestine" gap fillers. If there are thousands of ceramic tiles required to protect the Shuttle´s underside, does that mean there are also thousands of gap fillers, i.e.one between each adjecent tile, or are there gaps only between groups of tiles? Even though, removing a gap filler leaves a void, exposing the orbiter belly to the very hot (re-entry) plasma-gas. If a gap filler isn´t really needed because re-entry is still within safety margins, why install it in the first place? How large can a hole i.e. gap without a filler be, to become unsafe, as was the case in the Columbia shuttle? H.Raab, Austria
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|What does this have to do with computing?
I thought BetaNews was a software testing news site. When did we veer off into general news territory? If they'd used a modded iPod run on Linux funded by Microsoft to carry out the repairs I could understand.
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|Lol, I understand your sentiment...I feel the same way. The very first thing to enter my mind when I saw the shuttle news article was "Um...I already know about this through national news services" that and the fact that I usually go to the NASA.gov website to check out new space news. Regardless the next thing I wondered was why is betanews posting news not directly related to computing. There must be a beta release of Vista running on the shuttle or something.
"Calm down people, there's nothing to worry about. Windows just crashed on the shuttle, but it's alright! The Shuttle's Linux system backup kicked in immediately and is functioning above and beyond normal parameters and with greater speed, efficiency, and accuracy (forgive my spelling if I screwed up in any of that, it's late!)."
Maybe MS Windows is allergic to outer space. Or simply to vacuums, that would explain some things. I recall a pc I had that stopped working after lightly vacuuming the interior of the case. I restarted the computer and the MS windows xp OS was corrupted. Go fig (and I checked, I didn't knock anything loose, and I didn't vacuum up a jumper or anything!)
Alright...point of story summarized
I vote for BetaNews to stick to computer related news. I care about the shuttle as much as the next person, but I really do not care to read about it on a strictly computer related website.
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|What do I not understand--doesn't this leave some sort of *hole* in between the heat shields now through which air could pass (and heat up due to massive friction)?
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|From CNN.com
Discovery can return safely without either of the gap fillers in place, Hale said. One of them keeps tiles from vibrating against each other during liftoff and has no purpose for re-entry; the other is designed to prevent repeated overheating of a gap between two tiles, but not having it in place during a single re-entry would still be "well within our safety margins," Hale said.
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|I don't take my car out on long road trips without first checking it out well to ensure that it will make it. (something like a water pump or alternator couldn't be check that easy)I would however know if my window has a leak in the seal and if my car had a dent or loose fibers hanging off.
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|your car isn't powered by a controled explosion and accelerate to mach 8+ in a couple of minutes.
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|Which means they should look it over that much better then right?
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|Well I don't know about anyone else, but my car *is* powered by a controlled explosion. One in each cylinder, several times per second. Although the Mach 8 top speed is a tad difficult to reach. ;-)
Seriously though, the gap filler bits that are loose came loose after liftoff. Thus the pre-launch inspection would not have revealed any problem. The shuttle goes through some truly astonishing environmental dynamics throughout liftoff, and entry into orbit. Massive vibrations, air pressures at mach speeds exceeding every other flight vehicle, and massive temperature variations. That something like this happened isn't necessarily shocking. It's a very risky activity. Something could be said for improving the adhesive used to stick the strips between the tiles, much like the foam insulation issue with the main tank. The heat shield tiles themseleves are mounted on a felt-like backing material and glued to the orbiter belly with a very rubbery flexible adhesive, presumably to allow a certain amount of tile expansion and movement from heating up so much on re-entry. That would also explain the gaps present between the tiles. The need for expansion room. The fabric gap fillers merely are there to help prevent the tiles from chattering together on liftoff, which induces lots of vibration throughout the entire vehicle. The gap filler strips have already done their job.
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