Shuttle launch delayed, NASA bewares the ides of March?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 28 February 2007 10:04

Science - Space

The planned March 15 date of the Atlantis Shuttle launch has been delayed after a massive thunderstorm and golf-ball sized hail caused damage to the external fuel tank on Monday.

Monday's storm was stronger than expected, delivering massive hail stones right onto the Shuttle at pad 39a, peppering the external fuel tank with hundreds of 'divots', or dents caused by hail stone impact.

Atlantis will now need to be taken back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for a very thorough inspection and subsequent repairs to ensure the safety of the spacecraft and astronauts on future space missions.

Unfortunately, this now means that the Shuttle will not be able to launch in March as engineers are unsure they will be able to complete repairs by the end of the March launch window, which ends on March 25.

A new launch date is now being pencilled in for sometime between April 21 to May 22, as the windows between March 25 and April 21 is being reserved for the Russian Soyuz capsule that is due to dock with the International Space Station.

However, if the external fuel tank was seriously damaged, or damaged beyond repair, the launch could be delayed until June or later, as a replacement fuel tank (already under construction at the Michoud Assembly Plant in New Orleans) that was scheduled to be installed onto Atlantis in the future is still not yet complete.

The March window to launch the shuttle to the International Space Station closes March 25, when NASA must stand down to allow a Russian Soyuz launch to ferry a new crew to the orbiting outpost. NASA engineers say they simply don't have enough time make the repairs before the March window closes.

As can be expected, NASA is these days very, very cautious about any kind of damage to the Space Shuttle, following the disintegration of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 due to heat shield damage from foam falling off at launch, with subsequent foam damage in recent flights also causing major concern, but thankfully passing without major incident.