Spaceflight Now




Shuttle robot arm survey begins to check Atlantis
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: September 20, 2006

The Atlantis astronauts began a five-hour robot arm inspection of the shuttle's heat shield early today, on the look out for any signs of damage that might be associated with an object that apparently floated away from the ship Tuesday.

The tedious inspection work began shortly after midnight, initially focusing on the right wing's leading edge panels and then the ship's carbon composite nose cap. Around 2:15 a.m., arm operators moved the space crane into position to inspect the left wing's leading edge panels.

As of that point, no obvious problems had been seen.

Later this morning, the arm will peer underneath the shuttle, looking obliquely across heat shield tiles on the belly of the orbiter to look for signs of anything amiss.

If nothing is seen - and engineers believe any damage associated with the mystery object seen Tuesday would be easily visible - NASA managers could opt to press ahead with plans to bring Atlantis back to Earth on Thursday at 6:21 a.m. Good weather is expected.

If anything unusual is detected, or if lighting precludes a good assessment of heat shield health, the astronauts could be asked to use the shuttle's 50-foot-long heat shield inspection boom for more focused inspections.

But that would take additional time and could push landing to Friday, officials said Tuesday, even if no problems are found. The shuttle has enough on-board supplies to remain in orbit until Saturday.

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STS-115 patch
The official crew patch for the STS-115 mission of space shuttle Atlantis to resume orbital construction of the International Space Station.
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