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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 26 Jul 2005 07:46
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida. The space shuttle Discovery roared into the skies over Florida Tuesday morning as NASA returned to manned space flight for the first time since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
The spacecraft blasted off as scheduled at 10:39 a.m. ET, following days of troubleshooting to fix a faulty fuel sensor in its external tank.
Full story
QD, Yahoooy!
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lupus
Member
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# Posted: 27 Jul 2005 00:00
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Just saw this
Nasa is investigating two cases of apparent debris seen falling from the space shuttle Discovery as it blasted off for Earth orbit.
Full story can be found here
Good thing they got a repair kit up there. Hopfuly it got spares.
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 27 Jul 2005 13:12
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You're right, Lupus  Nasa has indeed been investigating all the bits and pieces of debris seen falling from the shuttle during launch.
Aside from a small chip of tile near the nose wheel doors and a possible chunk of external fuel tank foam, they have pictures of a bird strike on the top of the external tank just as launch occurred.
As you can see, the robotic arm with its new boom attachment is being used to give astronauts and NASA a closer look at the tiles and wing edges of Discovery.
This inspection is expected to take at least three days, and more inspections will be taken once the shuttle catches up with the International space station.
QD
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anthony_zuk
Member
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# Posted: 27 Jul 2005 13:28
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I was really pleased to see this in the newspaper today, even if it was the Sun *l*
Good for NASA I'm glad we're back out on the final frontier!
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 27 Jul 2005 14:04
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You're not the only one, Anthony I was so excited at the launch it was just plain silly. And any spare time has been spent glued to NASA tv. 
QD.
btw, the third picture above is of Discovery's nose looking forward. The holes are the vents for the OMS (orbital manoeuvring system).
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 27 Jul 2005 20:41
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Further to the above news about debris falling from the external fuel tank, it would seem NASA has taken the decision to ground the remaining shuttle fleet until the problem of loose foam is resolved.
It's a big blow for everyone, though Discovery seems undamaged from the large piece of insulation that was observed on launch day.
Read the rest here
QD 
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