**The most comprehensive collection of Shuttle, Ares, Orion and ISS related presentations and mission documentation, plus expansive daily processing documentation and updates are available to download on L2<\/em><\/font> **<\/em><\/font><\/font><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n Special STS-118 L2 Section now live, filled with documentation, processing memos, mission notes, videos, handbooks, checklists, and our very special live updates of actual live NASA mission notes direct from mission control, allowing you to follow the mission at the same time as NASA, along with real NASA\/USA engineers helping update and explain status live. All totally unavailable anywhere else on the net.<\/p>\n **LIVE: FLIGHT DAY SPECIFIC COVERAGE**<\/font><\/em> (Including links to all NASA Video \u2013 press conferences and mission milestones \u2013 for free).<\/p>\n **CLICK HERE FOR ALL NINE ARTICLES ON ENDEAVOUR\u2019S TPS Damage**<\/font><\/p>\n Article:<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n Spaceflight (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Officially, only the highly conservative JSC Engineering department dissented as a group against the MMT decision, although Shannon didn\u2019t note \u2013 or wasn\u2019t asked \u2013 about individual cases of dissent\/concern. <\/p>\n While it appears the vast majority of the engineering community concurred with the in-depth analysis and testing that took place in the days after the small gouge was spotted near Endeavour\u2019s landing gear door<\/font>, it also appears that everyone felt safe to give their input, and could rely on the backing of their own management. <\/p>\n The engineer in question \u2013 an expert in foam impact testing \u2013 voiced his concerns on Wednesday to his boss, Wanda Sigur, Vice President of Lockheed Martin\u2019s External Tank project at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans. <\/p>\n While the engineer did not demand to speak to the MMT, Sigur immediately passed on his concerns to John Chapman, head of the External Tank project at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), effectively Sigur\u2019s NASA boss. <\/p>\n \u2018I received an email from one of our engineers expressing concern with the potential decision to re-enter the orbiter \u2013 either as is or with a putty repair,\u2019 Sigur wrote to Chapman, forwarding the e-mail she had received from the engineer. \u2018Notes from his email are below:\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018The damage could be worst than what it appears,\u2019 wrote the engineer. \u2018During some of the impacts tests, we have what we called shear-out failures, where some of the impacts failed the tile at the densification layer, which it is designed to do. The problem is that not all of the failures lifted the tile out of place, but only cracked it 25-75 percent through that layer, leaving a tile partially attached. <\/p>\n \u2018With re-entry loads, it could fail the remaining portion and become dislodged during entry, leaving a large cavity, thus creating a more severe thermal issue. A repair to putty this area could also be detrimental, in that this could also aggravate the situation, making it worse. <\/p>\n \u2018I know they are performing re-entry testing on the tiles that mimic the shape of the damage area at JSC (tiles were CNC machined to the damage profile based on the 3D laser imagery taken of the damaged site<\/font>) but not on a tile out scenario.\u2019<\/p>\n Sigur \u2013 herself a mechanical engineer by trade \u2013 highlighted the engineer\u2019s recommendation, before asking: \u2018What are the appropriate channels to identify this?\u2019 <\/p>\n Her answer would come just seven minutes later, as Chapman wrote back: \u2018I\u2019d send it straight to John Shannon ASAP with a copy to Steve Poulos and Bill McArthur. Be sure to include contact info for your engineer so they can get more info \/ clarification if needed. If possible, he needs to attend this afternoon\u2019s MMT meeting.\u2019<\/p>\n Just over an hour later, the concern had reached the inbox of Shannon and other key shuttle management, with the original e-mail and contact details of the engineer, should they wish to call him.<\/p>\n Ten minutes later, the e-mail had been forwarded to other members of shuttle management, with a response on what was now becoming a chain e-mail, noting: \u2018Please handle this as a Shuttle Safety Hotline submission.\u2019 <\/p>\n Ultimately, the initial note of concern, forwarded from Sigur, had made it all the way up the chain of command to all of the shuttle management, within 90 minutes, with JSC manager Robert Doremus confirming to all on the chain e-mail: \u2018We will bring this up at today\u2019s MMT.\u2019 <\/p>\n While it is not known how the engineer\u2019s concerns were abated by the MMT, the ultimate decision that Endeavour was clear to come home<\/font>, was taken the following day, with only the minor dissent of JSC Engineering noted.<\/p>\n As to when Endeavour comes home is now the main focus of NASA evaluations, with Tuesday currently the forward plan, due to the threat of Hurricane Dean. The hurricane may force a closure of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) which is the home of the Mission Control Centers that play a vital role in mission operations and the return of the orbiters.<\/p>\n \u2018There are discussions of ending the mission early in order to get home before the hurricane,\u2019 noted one memo on Friday, which pointed to Tuesday as the cut-off date.<\/p>\n While backup facilities are available, NASA may find it prudent to ensure Endeavour is on the ground by Tuesday.<\/p>\n L2 users refer to the 62 page presentation on reccomendations to the MMT, downloadable on L2 \u2013 added to the additional presentations and notes, totalling over 600mb. Also includes specially \u2018stitched\u2019 super sized hi res images like the sample used in the article.<\/em><\/p>\n L2 members<\/font>: All documentation \u2013 from which the above article has quoted snippets \u2013 is available in full in the related L2 sections, updated live.<\/em><\/p>\n **STARLIGHT: NEW STS-117 MISSION REVIEW MUSIC VIDEO**<\/font><\/em><\/font> <\/em><\/font><\/p>\n **ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE: BRAND NEW STS-117 MISSION REVIEW MUSIC VIDEO \u2013 AS SEEN BY THE STS-117 CREW!!**<\/font> -. **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unthinkable before the loss of Columbia, a contractor engineer at Lockheed Martin was able to voice his concerns over the state of Endeavour\u2019s damaged TPS (Thermal Protection System) \u2013 all the way to Mission Management Team (MMT) chairman John Shannon \u2013 within a matter of hours. The engineer\u2019s concerns, with both re-entering as-is and repairing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}**Ride home through the fire, sparks and plasma of re-entry with Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour. 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