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NASA delays first Atlantis spacewalk by 24 hours
Houston, Texas (AFP) Feb 9, 2008 NASA Saturday delayed by 24 hours a spacewalk that had been set for Sunday to attach the European-made Columbus laboratory, carried aboard the Atlantis shuttle, to the orbiting International Space Station, a NASA spokesman said. Shuttle Mission chief John Shannon told reporters that German astronaut Hans Schlagel, one of the Atlantis' crew of seven, was unwell, without giving details, and had been excused from the spacewalk. He will be replaced by American astronaut Stanley Love on the spacewalk which has been delayed until Monday, Shannon said. The first Atlantis' 11-day mission includes three spacewalks, with the second and third also having to be rescheduled, he added. Shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin, meanwhile, said "we are working two technical issues, one with a computer failure, one of the navigational computer. "The other issue is a small tear in the (shuttle's) thermal blanket," he said. NASA said after Thursday's launch of the Atlantis that some foam debris had broken off the external tank during liftoff. Sarafin said the size of the tear was still "under analysis," adding that "we will have a better idea of that tomorrow," Sunday. The announcements came a few hours after the Atlantis docked with the ISS on Saturday and the hatches between the two spacecrafts were opened allowing the visiting crew of seven astronauts to be greeted by their three colleagues aboard the ISS. The Atlantis mission to deliver the 10-tonne Columbus laboratory is marking a milestone in Europe's role in space. Columbus, the first ISS addition not made in the United States or Russia, is a cylinder seven meters (23 feet) long and 4.5 meters (15 feet) in diameter that has room for up to three people. The lab will be used for biotechnology and medicine experiments involving microgravity. It cost some 1.3 billion euros (two billion dollars), paid mostly by Germany, Italy and France. Astronauts will use the ISS's robotic arm to transfer Columbus out of the shuttle's payload bay and attach it to the station. On their first day in orbit Friday the Atlantis crew trained a high-definition camera mounted on the shuttle's robotic arm on the spaceship's thermal shield to search for any damage that may have occurred during liftoff. Shannon said that three small foam losses from the shuttle's external fuel tank were filmed in the minutes after liftoff Thursday. While the first two pieces appeared to have missed the shuttle, Shannon said the third one may have struck the underside of the craft, although its mass and speed were too small, given the altitude at the time, to cause any damage to the heat tiles. Examining the shuttle's heat shield became established procedure after the February 2003 shuttle Columbia disaster. A piece of foam insulation broke off during Columbia's liftoff, damaging the shuttle's external heat tiles and leading to the craft's destruction when it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere killing seven astronauts. Besides Schlegel, the Atlantis crew includes astronauts Leopold Eyharts of France and five US astronauts. Currently US and Russian astronauts are aboard the space station. Eyharts will begin Europe's second longest stay on the space station by replacing US astronaut Dan Tani. The German astronaut of the European Space Agenecy, Thomas Reiter, stayed six months in the station in 2006. Atlantis was originally scheduled for blastoff on December 6 as part of the tight schedule of shuttle flights to complete ISS construction by 2010, when the three-craft US shuttle fleet is to be retired. But malfunctioning circuits in the fuel gauges of the spacecraft's liquid hydrogen tank forced a two-month delay until the problem was fixed. The shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to return to Earth on February 18. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Station at NASA Station and More at Roscosmos S.P. Korolev RSC Energia Watch NASA TV via Space.TV Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com
Progress M-63 Docks With ISS
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Feb 08, 2008Russia's Progress M-63 cargo ship has docked with the International Space Station (ISS) as planned, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Thursday. Progress M-63 delivered 2.5 metric tons of cargo, including food, equipment and other supplies, for the ISS. The crew on board the ISS, the 16th expedition to the space station, comprises U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani, as well as Russia's Yury Malenchenko. |
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