Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Fri 06 Oct 2006 04:44 PM PDT
Houston Chronicle
Oct. 6, 2006, 7:57AM
Space debris put small hole in shuttle
NASA says hit by a tiny particle slightly damaged the shuttle, but the crew was safe
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
The space shuttle Atlantis was struck by a small piece of space debris during its recent 12-day mission, NASA disclosed on Thursday. The craft was slightly damaged, but the crew of six was not in any danger, officials said.
The damaged section will be inspected and repaired. The repairs will not affect plans for Atlantis to launch again in February, NASA said. Atlantis will also serve as the rescue shuttle for Discovery's mission, which is tentatively scheduled for a Dec. 7 liftoff.
The strike — by either a small meteor or a tiny, man-made piece of orbital metal — blasted through a half-inch-thick aluminum structure placed inside Atlantis' right payload bay door. The structure supported a radiator panel.
The opening, officials said, measured 1/10 of an inch at the entry point and 3/100 of an inch at its exit point.
Crew checked other areas
If the debris had struck critical heat shields on the shuttle's underside, the wings' leading edges or the craft's nose cap, the damage would have been spotted during the external inspections of Atlantis made by the shuttle astronauts before they landed, said NASA shuttle program spokesman Kyle Herring.The space agency added heat-shield inspections to the mission after each liftoff and prior to each landing in the aftermath of a series of safety steps taken after the 2003 Columbia accident. Columbia's heat shield was struck and damaged at liftoff by falling foam fuel tank insulation. The damage, which triggered a fatal disintegration during Columbia's re-entry, went undetected because shuttle managers did not believe the mass of the foam was great enough to shatter the heat shields.
In addition to the in-flight inspections initiated after the Columbia tragedy, NASA changed the way the shuttle docks with the international space station in an effort to provide more protection to the craft and crew.
The change placed Atlantis at the back end of the space station as the two spacecraft sped around the Earth at speeds of nearly 18,000 miles per hour. In the protective posture, most of the shuttle's heat shield faces away from the direction of travel. The change, however, exposed the radiators that line the inside of the shuttle's open payload bay doors to the direction of travel, a risk mission managers considered before altering the docking strategy, Herring said.
Experts will look at damage
NASA will retire its shuttle fleet in 2010, after the winged spacecraft finishes the construction of the space station.In addition to changes in the way shuttle missions are conducted, NASA now prepares the space station to serve as a temporary shelter for the crew of a shuttle crippled by an impact of debris. The orbital outpost would provide living accommodations until NASA could lead a rescue mission.
Engineers are gathering samples of the damaged aluminum from Atlantis, which will be analyzed to determine if the source of the impact was a micrometeoroid or one of the thousands of fragments of old rockets and satellites that hurtle around the Earth.
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