Space Shuttle Gets Clean Bill Of Health

The space shuttle Discovery's crew used a laser scanner and a high-resolution digital camera on the end of a long boom today to inspect the ship's reinforced carbon-carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels in a now-standard exercise for post-Columbia crews, reports CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood. The news was good.

Today's scan took on a bit of added significance because of pre-launch concern over subtle degradation in a protective coating on three of the 44 wing leading edge panels, which experience some of the most extreme heating during re-entry. While it will take another few days to complete analysis of the inspection data, nothing obvious could be seen in video downlinked from the shuttle.

"This briefing ought to be pretty short and sweet," lead flight director Rick LaBrode told reporters in a later morning status report. I'm happy to report that things are going extremely well. When the crew woke up this morning, they got started with their day, they were in outstanding spirits, it's really a pleasure to see them on the video downlink and see how happy they are and ready to get going. The vehicle is operating perfectly, we're not tracking any major issues."

Wednesday was the first full day of what NASA considers to be the most complicated space station construction mission yet. The shuttle is scheduled to reach the station Thursday.

NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, said after Tuesday's liftoff that the astronauts face a tremendous series of challenges, but noted, "I can't think of a better start to this mission than what we got today." It was the third on-time shuttle launch in a row.

Asked about the wing leading edge inspections, LaBrode said "we completed the starboard wing scan, the nose cap and the port scan was in progress, near the very end, when I left the console. And all of that was going very well."

While he did not watch the entire downlink, "I personally did not see anything of significance. The report that I heard from some of the folks in the hall was that nobody's seen anything of any significance."

He also said there was not yet any detailed update on the performance of Discovery's external tank during the climb to orbit. NASA managers said Tuesday a quick look at ascent imagery showed what appeared to be a half dozen small pieces of foam insulation falling from the tank after the shuttle's solid-fuel boosters separated two minutes into flight. By that point, the shuttle is out of the dense lower atmosphere and debris is not as much of a concern.

Before launch, an independent NASA engineering group recommended delaying Discovery's flight to replace the panels after concluding the root cause of the degradation was not as well understood as previously believed, reports Harwood. Without a known root cause, they argued, it is not possible to make accurate predictions about how such degradation might evolve over time.

NASA managers, however, cleared Discovery for launch as is, based on past experience with the panels - the degradation has been fairly stable over two previous missions - and because any major change for the worse would be spotted by the crew during their normal heat shield inspections and if necessary, repairs could be made.

"As far as the foam liberation, I don't have any additional data," LaBrode said Wednesday. "What I had heard was that they had seen a couple of indications (of foam releases) and they were after SRB (solid rocket booster) sep(aration), so that they really weren't in what is considered the timeframe of concern. But I don't have any additional data on that."

The shuttle's primary payload is an Italian-built compartment, about the size of a small bus, that will serve as the docking port for science labs due to arrive beginning in December. Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli is personally delivering the pressurized chamber, called Harmony.

During their 1½-week station visit, the astronauts must install Harmony, relocate a giant girder and set of solar wings, extend those solar wings and radiators, and test a thermal tile repair kit. Five spacewalks are planned, which will be the most ever conducted while a shuttle is docked at the station.

Astronaut Daniel Tani will move into the station once Discovery docks. He will replace Clayton Anderson, who will return to Earth on the shuttle after five months in space.

As they prepared for the inspection, Melroy, Tani and astronauts Scott Parazynski and George Zamka hugged and waved into the cockpit camera.

"You all look like you're having way too much fun," Mission Control said.

"That would be the STS-120 crew," Melroy answered with a laugh. "We're always having too much fun."