NASA examining Shuttle's dings, extending mission

[Rick]

Mission controllers at NASA are inspecting some damage to the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield sustained during the "flawless" launch last week.

Before docking with the International Space Station (ISS), the shuttle performed a now-routine flip to allow the ground crew at mission control to inspect the craft for damage. The eagle-eyed boffins spotted five dings in the insulating tiles.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/13/space_station/

[Rick]

NASA has put off making a decision about repairing a hole in the insulation under the space shuttle's wing until tomorrow, according to reports.

If the repair is needed, the fix will take place on the next spacewalk, slated for Saturday.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/16/shuttle_repair/

[Rick]

After a week of hmm-ing and haa-ing, NASA has elected not to repair the hole in the Shuttle Endeavour before it returns to Earth.

Mission chief John Shannon said the decision had not been unanimous, but had been "pretty overwhelming", according to the Houston Chronicle.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/17/nasa_no_fix/

[Rick]

The space shuttle Endeavour is heading home a day early, as concern rises that Hurricane Dean, currently battering the south coast of Jamaica, could turn North and threaten mission control in Houston.

NASA said that although it could get a skeleton mission control crew to Cape Canaveral, it would rather bring Endeavour in with a full complement of staff on hand.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/20/shuttle_dean_home/

(Landing set for just after 12:30 EDT today at Kennedy Space Centre...)

[Rick]

The dinged heat shield tiles on NASA's shuttle Endeavour performed much better than expected during the orbiter's landing today and marked the only blemish on an otherwise flawless spacecraft, the space agency said Tuesday.

Slight tile damage aside, Endeavour is in fine shape after the shuttle's first flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in almost five years, NASA chief Michael Griffin said.

"Actually the orbiter overall was pretty clean," Griffin said. "We had one kind of ugly ding and we paid appropriate attention to it."

More: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070821_sts118_postland.html