During an earlier inspection of the shuttle Discovery, one of its four hoses that carry Freon® to the orbiter’s radiators in its payload bay was found deformed. Because of its faulty condition, it was unable to be fully retracted.

The Freon® runs through the hoses and cools the systems onboard the orbiter while in space. The hoses run from the body of the spacecraft to the radiator panels on the cargo bay doors.

Looking into that same problem with Atlantis, NASA engineers found, on Tuesday, January 29, that one of its four Freon® hoses was also bent. The engineers are now looking into whether the braided metal hose will work as it should. The other three hoses were found to be in a normal condition and nominal arrangement within their containers.

According to a January 30, 2008 NASA website, space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale stated, "Right now, that hose is perfectly functional. Since the hose is not leaking now and the sister hose on Discovery didn't leak on a number of flights, I'm feeling very positive we'll come to a good conclusion. But we have to do our work here, the engineers have to do their work and we want to make sure we know what we're doing before we go fly this vehicle."

Another senior management review will be conducted on Saturday, February 2, 2008, to review and analyze any remaining work that must be completed before the STS-122 mission will be allowed to liftoff.

The eleven-day mission of STS-122 will be dedicated to delivering and installing the European Space Agency’s new Columbus laboratory onto the International Space Station. The laboratory has the capability to provide scientists around the world with a variety of experiments in the physical, life, and materials science areas.

Three spacewalks are scheduled during the shuttle’s visit to the space station. One astronaut, Dan Tani, who has been the ISS’s flight engineer for these many months, will return to Earth with the STS-122 crew.

The seven-member STS-122 crew includes commander Steve Frick, pilot Alan Poindexter, and mission specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, and European Space Agency astronauts Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts.

Eyharts will remain onboard the space station after the STS-122 crew completes its mission and head home to Earth later in the month. He is expected to return to Earth in March 2008, with the STS-123 crew.

For additional information about the STS-122 mission, including images and interviews with the crew, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts122/.

Additional information about the FRR meeting and the February 7 launch date, go to the NASA website “Review sets Feb. 7 Launch Date” at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html.

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Astronaut  International Space Station  NASA  Science  Space Shuttle  Space Transportation System  William Atkins