Skip to content

Biting the hand that feeds IT

The Register ®

Science:


Related Whitepapers

[Print][Mobile][Alerts]

Discovery docks with ISS

Smooth mating

Published Thursday 28th July 2005 14:23 GMT

In brief The space shuttle Discovery has successfully docked with the International Space Station in a trauma-free mating during which ISS cameras captured images of the vehicle's underside for inspection for possible damage to the heat shielding.

Initial reports suggest that there is no major cause for concern following the detachment of two pieces of foam from the shuttle's external fuel tank - one six inches long from the liquid hydrogen intertank flange, and another about 30 inches long from the Protuberance Air Load (Pal) ramp - during the orbiter's 26 July launch. NASA will continue to probe the photos in a search of hitherto unseen impact damage.

Although the fuel tank incident provoked NASA to ground the entire shuttle fleet indefinitely, Nasa administrator Dr Mike Griffin told ABC News that over-dramatisation was unnecessary with regard to Discovery. "Everything that we see at this point says that the orbiter is in fact a clean bird," he assured viewers.

Discovery is due to return to Earth on 7 August. ®

Related link

Up-to-the-minute news on the NASA Return to Flight website.

Related stories

Shuttle grounded again - indefinitely
NASA investigates falling debris
Shuttle actually lifts off

Track this type of story as a custom Atom/RSS feed or by email.
Previous Article Next Article
whitepaper title

How IT Management Can "Green" the Data Center

This Gartner research provides managers with an outline of the trends affecting datacenters and offers strategies with which to address these changes..
whitepaper title

Gartner Paper: US Data Centers

U.S. enterprise data centers face considerable space and energy constraints over the next few years. Download this free independent report to read more..
Whitepapers

Top 20 storiesAll The Week’s HeadlinesArchiveSearch