NASA says it has beaten Discovery's crack habit
by Steven Mostyn - Jan 12 2011, 11:12
Cracked it! Image: JD Hancock/Flickr.
According to NASA, it has finally uncovered the root cause of the potentially dangerous cracks found on the aluminium housing of the space shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank.
Addressing gathered reporters, shuttle program manager John Shannon revealed that inferior materials and assembly failings are to blame for the cracks, which have been found on five of the fuel tank’s 108 aluminium support struts.
By applying an “elegant fix” to the problem, NASA has moved to patch the affected areas and will also take the added precaution of reinforcing the tank’s other 103 struts to prevent any possibility of buckling.
NASA has said the substandard materials used to create the struts are probably also evident on the fuel tank that helped launch Atlantis in May of 2010. Those struts will all be checked and fixed—if necessary—before Atlantis embarks on its final mission later in the year.
The steady stream of problematic cracks located by NASA engineers have contributed to keeping Discovery from launching on its final mission ahead of retirement.
Discovery had initially been scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 5. Discovery’s mission to the International Space Station is presently pencilled in with a tentative go-date of February 26.
Comment on this Story