Fuel tank foam damaged shuttle heat shield, NASA says.
HOUSTON -- A chunk of foam insulation, not ice, damaged the protective belly-mounted tiles of NASA's space shuttle Endeavour during its launch earlier this week, mission managers said late Saturday.
Video recorded by cameras on Endeavour's twin solid rocket boosters during its Aug. 8 launch caught a grapefruit-sized piece of fuel tank foam as it gouged a 3-inch square (19 square centimeter) gash into heat-resistant tiles on the orbiter's undercarriage, said John Shannon, chair of NASA's shuttle mission management team.
"We feel like we have the culprit," Shannon said in a mission briefing here at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "I think we have conclusively shown where the piece of foam came from."
The foam piece fell from a lower bracket attaching a 17-inch (43-centimeter) liquid oxygen feed line to Endeavour's fuel tank about 58 seconds after liftoff, then bounced off a metal strut to bite into two of the black ceramic tiles near the shuttle's rear right landing gear door. In addition to the gouge, the foam debris caused a series of other scuffs aft of the initial impact, Shannon said.
"It was bad luck because we got a bad bounce off this [external tank] strut," he added.
Because the debris appears to be primarily made up of foam, and not denser ice as originally thought, mission managers are more confident that the damage inflicted is not be severe enough to require a spacewalk repair. But Shannon said Endeavour's astronaut crew will conduct an in-depth inspection of the tile damage Sunday to be sure.
A view of damage to heat-resistant tiles on the underside of the space shuttle Endeavour, 4 feet (1.2 meters) from the starboard landing gear door. Credit: NASA.
A view of the area where a grapefruit-sized chunk of foam that damaged space shuttle Endeavour's heat-resistant underbelly is believed to have originated. Credit: NASA.
This image depicts tile damage to the space shuttle Endeavour during its Aug. 8, 2007 launch, as well as its location near the starboard landing gear door. Credit: NASA.
This is one of a series of images of different areas of Space Shuttle Endeavour as it approached the International Space Station and performed a back-flip to accommodate close scrutiny. This image shows Endeavour's nose cone and surrounding area. Image credit: NASA.