Astronauts may sew up tear

HOUSTON – Atlantis astronauts may use a sewing kit normally reserved for spacesuits to repair a peeled-back thermal blanket near the spacecraft’s tail, NASA managers said Tuesday.

The shuttle astronauts’ 11-day mission was extended Monday by two days to allow time to fix the thermal blanket, which peeled during launch last week.

No final decision has been made on when the repair, which covers a 4-by-6-inch area over an engine pod, will be made, or what repair technique will be used.

Engineers have looked at using duct tape or other adhesives to secure the blanket, but are leaning toward a method which would use stainless steel wire as thread and an instrument with a rounded end resembling a small darning needle.

“Duct tape doesn’t work in the vacuum of space,” said John Shannon, the mission management team’s chairman.

NASA engineers planned to try out the different method in heat and wind tunnel tests.

The thermal blankets are used to protect the shuttle from searing heat during re-entry. Engineers don’t think the intense heat could burn through the graphite structure underneath it and jeopardize the spacecraft.

But it could damage the shuttle, requiring repairs after landing that could delay the three additional flights to the space station NASA has scheduled for the remainder of the year.

Meanwhile, the international space station’s newest power source – a set of solar wings – made its debut Tuesday.

The solar array is part of a new 17.5-ton space station segment that was connected to the orbiting outpost during a spacewalk Monday.

The solar wings were deployed one at a time, first halfway unfurled and allowed to warm in the sun about 30 minutes. This prevented the solar panels from sticking together.

Each solar wing is 115 feet long and weighs more than 2,400 pounds. The entire solar array’s wingspan is more than 240 feet. The array, which converts sunlight to electricity, is the station’s third pair of solar panels.