Discovery Shuttle May Have To Delay Landing
The crew aboard the Discovery space shuttle was confused and a little worried when they spotted an object floating from their ship and into space. They are scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center sin a week – but are now wondering if the object was something of importance. The object could mean that something is broken or it could simply be a piece of ice or a plastic bag that was floating out of the payload bay.
Commander Mark E. Kelly of the Navy, the shuttle commander, radioed to the ground on Friday morning and reported the problem to NASA control center. Commander Kelly also pointed out what he called “a bump” that was seen sticking out from the trailing edge of the port side of the shuttle’s rudder. This part sits on the vertical tail fin of the spacecraft. The crew sent videos and still images of the object to the control center so that they can analyze it. The commander said that he would ‘take the arm out’ (the shutle’s robotic arm) and to take a better look at the problem with the camera that is attached to it.
If a serious problem is discovered, the crew can take the shuttle back to the International Space Station, which it separated from on Wednesday, so that mission managers can determine whether to repair the craft or attempt to send another shuttle as a rescue vehicle.
Rob Navias, a commentator on the space program’s NASA TV service, said that the area of the protrusion appears to be a small piece of thermal insulation, in the area known as the “speed brake,” a part of the rudder that splits to slow the craft. The nature of the larger object floating away from the craft at about a foot per second, which appeared to be shiny, rectangular and roughly 12 to 18 inches across, is still being analyzed on the ground.