CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Atlantis astronauts uncovered a 21-inch stretch of nicks on their space shuttle Tuesday, but NASA said the damage did not appear to be serious.
The damage was likely the result of debris that came off the fuel tank shortly after liftoff Monday. The astronauts were inspecting their ship while flying to the Hubble Space Telescope when they came across the nicks spread over four to five thermal tiles.
A NASA photo shows what appears to be about 10 white scuff marks around the edge of the shuttle where the right wing joins the fuselage and the belly curves up to the top of Atlantis.
“It doesn’t look very serious,” Mission Control said. “Those tiles are pretty thick. The nicks look to be pretty small.”
And a decision late Tuesday by NASA managers indicated that the problem was minor and wouldn’t require much more examination.
This repair mission is especially risky — a rescue shuttle is on standby for the first time ever — because of the debris-littered orbit of Hubble. Unlike other space flights, the astronauts can’t reach the international space station because it is in a different orbit than the telescope.
NASA managers weren’t too worried Tuesday, saying this type of damage looks similar to nicks seen in the past five or six missions that were safe.
“The area is not as critical” as other parts on the shuttle wing, deputy shuttle program manager LeRoy Cain said. “The damage itself appears to be relatively shallow and it’s not a very large area of damage.”
Damage to the shuttle during liftoff has been a worry for NASA since Columbia was doomed by a chunk of fuel-tank insulating foam that broke off during launch in 2003. Columbia’s left wing was punctured, along a vulnerable edge and at the time NASA managers ignored an engineer’s request for more photos of potential damage.
But the biggest danger on any shuttle flight is getting hit with space junk or tiny rocks at high speeds during orbit, not during launch.
Atlantis is now in a rough orbital neighborhood — a place littered with thousands of pieces of space junk zipping around the Earth at nearly 20,000 mph. There are more pieces of shattered satellites and used-up rockets in this region — the telescope orbits about 350 miles above Earth — than astronauts have ever encountered.
Something as small as one-third the width of a dime can penetrate the shuttle’s cabin, causing a major problem, according to NASA.
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