NASA\u2019s Mission Management Team (MMT) have just informed the crew of Discovery that another spacewalk (EVA 4) will not be required to repair a thermal protection system (TPS) blanket near the left-hand flight deck (Crew Commander\u2019s) window. <\/p>\n
The team, which includes Shuttle managers Wayne Hale and Bill Parsons decided that the issue does not bear a threat to the Orbiter during re-entry. The crew were informed just a day after Steve Robinson performed a first-of-its-kind spacewalk removed of two protruding gap fillers from the belly of Discovery.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n NASA had also revealed that ground crews had spotted a fault in the thermal blanket which protects the shuttle on re-entry \u2013 a piece is apparently sticking out under one of its windows.<\/p>\n Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi \u2013 who has completed three EVAs on STS-114 with Robinson, noted to the ground on hearing a further EVA will not be required: \u201cThat\u2019s good news and we\u2019ll be right on the timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n Discovery is due to leave the International Space Station \u2013 where she is docked \u2013 on Saturday and return to earth early on August 8.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Commander Eileen Collins noted she is looking forward to returning to Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have looked at everything. I wouldn\u2019t fly this flight if I didn\u2019t think it was a safe thing to do,\u201d she once again noted \u2013 as the media frenzy continues over the safety of the Shuttle.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to getting back and seeing my family again.\u201d<\/p>\n Astronaut Charles Camarda added: \u201cThis is the first time we have ever scrutinized the vehicle like we are doing on orbit.<\/p>\n \u201cI expected the bottom of the vehicle to look a lot worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Also noted today was the scheduled rollout of Shuttle Atlantis \u2013 which has been delayed to \u2018no sooner than\u2019 0001am Sunday.<\/p>\n <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA\u2019s Mission Management Team (MMT) have just informed the crew of Discovery that another spacewalk (EVA 4) will not be required to repair a thermal protection system (TPS) blanket near the left-hand flight deck (Crew Commander\u2019s) window. The team, which includes Shuttle managers Wayne Hale and Bill Parsons decided that the issue does not bear […]<\/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-42326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42326"}],"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=42326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n