**The most comprehensive collection of STS-117 onwards related presentions and mission documentation are <\/em>available to download on L2<\/em> <\/em>**<\/em><\/p>\n **LIVE news updates on Atlantis STS-117 PAD Flow**<\/em><\/p>\n **LIVE news updates on Endeavour STS-118 (LON-318) Processing**<\/em><\/p>\n **LIVE news updates on Discovery STS-122 (LON-322) Processing**<\/em><\/p>\n Space Technology (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n <\/font>Related Notes and Presentations on L2, including: The NASA e-mails and memos on the ET damage, plus new images. All 17 MOD FRR presentations <\/em>\u2013 available to download on L2.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n **NEW ARTICLE \u2013 UPDATING STATUS**<\/p>\n With rollback, the new dates that can be aimed for will depend on the extent of the repaires required, with the worst case scenario based on requiring the changeout of the External Tank (ET-124) to ET-117 \u2013 due to arrive at KSC in April.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018This evening, around 1700, Pad A experienced hail up to golf ball size. Damage to the ET was visible on OTV. OTV recorded multiple views of the damage prior to darkness,\u2019 noted a NASA e-mail sent around this morning. \u2018An ET Team (USA\/NASA ET Mechanical and Lockheed ET TPS) reviewed the video imaging of the damage on the external tank. <\/p>\n \u2018At a glance, the damage is worst than ET-100 (previous rollback with about 700 areas of damage). Damage is at least 1000 and is in the no-debris zone. It also looks like there is damage on at least one Ice Frost Ramp. Visible damage appears to be on the southwest of the tank. However, the north side of the tank was not imaged\u2026\u2026\u2019 <\/p>\n That last time a stack was rolled back to the VAB for ET SOFI repairs due to hail was on STS-96 in 1999. However, a clue to how long such repairs could take can be drawn from that incident, which only led to a seven day delay. STS-96 was originally scheduled for May 20 1999, launch occurred as planned on the new launch date of May 27 1999.<\/font><\/p>\n To aid the inspections, the GVA was extended and hood lowered on the ET for close-up inspections of the damage, which is on-going, as one engineer walks around the hood for a closer look at the damage.<\/p>\n \u2018There has been a great deal of speculation in the last 12 hours regarding the severe weather damage to the ET caused by a line of storm that moved through the KSC area yesterday afternoon,\u2019 noted another NASA e-mail. <\/p>\n \u2018The plan is for inspections of the tank to pick up this morning in order to ascertain the damage. We thought it was valuable to pass along the details as we know them so here is the KSC report from the on-console OPE and a few pictures from the OTV system.\u2019<\/font><\/p>\n NASA managers are currently starting STS-117\u2019s FRR (Flight Readiness Review), which has opened with discussions on the seriousness of the ET damage. <\/p>\n \u2018Norm Knight is in attendance at the STS-117 Level I FRR and this is the first topic that will be discussed this morning,\u2019 added an e-mail sent on his behalf. \u2018If there are launch date impacts, those will become more clear in the next 24-48 hours. We will pass on any additional details as soon as they become available so that you may plan accordingly.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n <\/font>This article will be updated as new information arrives \u2013 due to the high volume of information arriving, please refer to the live update pages on L2 and Atlantis\u2019 section.<\/font><\/p>\n **INFINITY: 10 minute STS MUSIC VIDEO**<\/font><\/em><\/font> \u2013 **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Engineers are evaluating observed damage to the top of the External Tank (ET-124) \u2013 which is set to fly with Atlantis on STS-117 \u2013 caused by a hail storm late on Monday. The damage is visible to the SOFI foam on the top of the LOX tank and an Ice Frost Ramp (IFR), and with […]<\/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-41786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41786"}],"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=41786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/font><\/p>\n
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