{"id":42022,"date":"2006-07-03T21:48:58","date_gmt":"2006-07-03T13:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/discoverys-tank-suffers-foam-issue\/"},"modified":"2006-07-03T21:48:58","modified_gmt":"2006-07-03T13:48:58","slug":"discoverys-tank-suffers-foam-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/discoverys-tank-suffers-foam-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery\u2019s tank suffers foam issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mission Management Team (MMT) are meeting throughout the day to discuss a course of action \u2013 after a crack was found in Discovery\u2019s External Tank. Managers are deciding on whether to repair at the pad, or fly \u201cas is\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, two other issues that have come to light during Shuttle Discovery\u2019s opening two attempts to launch on STS-121, but both are workable, according to officials and sources. <\/p>\n

**BREAKING NEWS: ATTEMPT 3 WILL TAKE PLACE FOR DISCOVERY ON JULY 4**\n<\/p>\n

\"\"The crack, found on \u2013 or near \u2013 the 17 inch feedline bracket was spotted during an inspection carried out after the detanking of ET-119, following Sunday\u2019s scrub. A piece of foam was also found on the MLP (Mobile Launch Platform).<\/p>\n

The MMT are set to hold their daily press conference later today. Updates will follow. **Live update thread of the media conference**<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the failure of a heater on RCS (Reaction Control System) L5L, and an intermittent fault on a five percent LH2 ECO (Engine Cut Off) sensor, won\u2019t affect the July 4 launch attempt \u2013 should NASA decided to fly \u2018as is\u2019 with the foam issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/font>The ECO sensor in question is not critical to flight \u2013 and does not fall under the waiver that was issued in case of a repeat of STS-114\u2019s sensor issues.<\/p>\n

\u2018We watched it go from DRY back to WET \u2013 it toggled a few times before going dry \u2013 around the same time as the LOX 5% sensor,\u2019 noted a source.<\/p>\n

NASA, however, are not concerned, noting it confirms their suspicions of the \u2018bad lot\u2019 from which the sensor in question came from. The main LH2 sensors in the bottom of the tank are from a new batch, following their replacement in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), prior to stacking with Discovery.<\/p>\n

The failure of the heater on the RCS thruster is also not proving to be a problem for engineers to overcome, with a plan written up on compensating for the loss of the thruster on orbit. <\/p>\n

While it is possible the stresses of ascent may bring the heater back on line, orbital positioning of the orbiter may \u2018warm\u2019 the thruster enough to be used.<\/p>\n

Engineers at JSC (Johnson Space Center) tested the plan in the simulators \u2013 shortly after the heater was deemed as unworkable \u2013 to see how that would affect the rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n

Sources note that if they need to deselect L5L, then the flight software down-modes the DAP (Digital Auto Pilot) to FREE (Free Drift Mode). This will make matters complex for the orbiter, but there is understood to be plans in place for worst-case scenarios.
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The Mission Management Team (MMT) are meeting throughout the day to discuss a course of action \u2013 after a crack was found in Discovery\u2019s External Tank. Managers are deciding on whether to repair at the pad, or fly \u201cas is\u201d. However, two other issues that have come to light during Shuttle Discovery\u2019s opening two attempts […]<\/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-42022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42022"}],"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=42022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}