NASA has announced a series of innovated solutions to the big question surrounding the agency\u2019s Return to Flight \u2013 how to stop the same mistake that saw the demise of Columbia happening to any of their three remaining Orbiters \u2014 by being aware of the problem.\n<\/p>\n
It was a chunk of insulation foam that struck Columbia\u2019s left wing not long after throttle up on STS-107\u2019s launch that punched a hole through the leading edge of the wing\u2019s Thermal Protection System \u2013 a breach that proved fatal when super-hot gases purged the inner cavity on re-entry \u2013 leading to the break up of the flagship high over Texas.<\/font><\/p>\n Radar and around 104 cameras \u2013 including digital and high speed video systems, as well as airborne and space-based cameras \u2013 will cover all angles of the launch, to be reviewed on the ground to check for any debris striking the vehicle on its assent. The main focus will be on the re-designed External Tank (ET) \u2013 prone to shed foam as a matter of routine, albeit the routine debris is normally small and non-damaging.<\/font><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re expecting to see more debris than ever before, although that is due to ground stations seeing more debris than ever before,\u201d said shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore.<\/font><\/p>\n Muratore\u2019s comments came at a press conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it was also noted that debris strikes on the Shuttle during launches has been reviewed to such an extent that over one billion computer simulations have been run to see if engineers can learn of new ways to protect the Orbiter<\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult engineering problem,\u201d he added.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n With Discovery about to roll-out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) around noon Florida time on Wednesday, thus achieving another milestone ahead of the \u2018still under review\u2019 May launch, many more milestones are still to be completed to the point of successfully giving a green lights for STS-114 to head to the International Space Station (ISS).<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n The Debris Verification Review Meeting is one such integral milestone, one that needs to satisfy all parties concerned that debris is not going to be a risk \u2013 at least one that would hold doubts over the safety of the Shuttle and her crew of seven.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Space Shuttle (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n \u201cI have zero doubt..nothing is going to get by us,\u201d said shuttle flight operations manager John Shannon, in reference to seeing any serious debris strike on the Orbiter. \u201cThe question is what to do about it then.<\/font><\/p>\n \u201cI have a really high level of confidence that if we have any damage on the vehicle, we\u2019re going to be able to detect it.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NASA has announced a series of innovated solutions to the big question surrounding the agency\u2019s Return to Flight \u2013 how to stop the same mistake that saw the demise of Columbia happening to any of their three remaining Orbiters \u2014 by being aware of the problem. It was a chunk of insulation foam that struck […]<\/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-42423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42423"}],"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=42423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}