Atlantis Shuttle Launch Postponed by NASA

The shuttle Atlantis was removed from its Kennedy Space Center launch pad in Florida 04 Mar at 08:47 after the hail damage that occurred on the tank during a severe thunderstorm last week. It's now back in its hangar with approximately 1,000 to 2,000 divots in the giant tank's foam insulation and surface damage to about 26 heat shield tiles on the orbiter's left wing. Further appraisal of the ET's foam damage must be done in the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the entire tank can be more easily accessed. NASA redesigned the external tank, removing large amounts of foam, before the three successful shuttle missions in 2006. The space agency plans yet another design change to the tank before the shuttle program ends in 2010.

Harking back to the reason for the loss of the Challenger, it was a large detached slab of foam, suit-cased size, that impacted the Orbiter's left wing during a post-initial-launch period of heavy acceleration. The undetected wing leading-edge tile damage led to the hot gasses of re-entry penetrating the port main-gear wheel well and destroying critical systems. Ultimately the flight control system's reaction jets were unable to maintain the vital re-entry attitude and the orbiter broke up. ASW has pointed out before (in fact, many times over many issues - see "the Sacrificial Glove") that an overlay of Dow Corning RTV silicone along the Orbiter's vulnerable RCC (reinforced carbon-carbon) wing leading-edges would provide on-launch protection from such glancing blows. It would also avoid on launch-pad hail and paint-leaching damage to the very thin and brittle RCC tiles. It'd also protect the ET's nose-cone, where the majority of the hail-damage has now flecked and pitted the foam. The heat of re-entry at the re-entry interface would quickly vaporize the RTV and affect the re-entry not at all. NASA has proven, over time, that innovative solutions are indigestible however.

The sortie of Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) will now be scheduled sometime after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft returns from the station. The Soyuz is swapping out some ISS crew members.