Shuttle Thermal Blanket Back In Place

Aerospace Daily & Defense Report ^ | 06/18/07

[KevinDavis]

Astronaut John (Danny) Olivas used a surgical stapler and some stainless steel pins to tack down a ripped piece of thermal blanket on the tail of the space shuttle Atlantis June 15, easing concerns the damage could endanger the orbiter on re-entry or delay its turnaround on the ground.

Mounted in a foot restraint on the shuttle's robot arm, which was extended the full length of the cargo bay, Olivas carefully used his gloved hand to poke the blanket section on the left Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) pod back into place where it had pulled up from an adjacent row of thermal blankets.

Then, following a procedure developed and tested on the ground after the rip was noticed following Atlantis's June 8 launch, he used a surgical stapler to install two rows of about eight stainless steel staples each where they would hold the torn blanket to the undamaged blanket next to it.

After that he used a modified dental tool to poke holes in the blanket and adjacent tiles so he could pin the blanket to the tiles with long stainless steel pins equipped with a loop for ease of handling with the bulky spacesuit gloves. Tests at Johnson Space Center suggested the stainless steel would soften but not melt when exposed to the 1,000-degree Fahrenheit temperatures expected on the OMS pods during re-entry.

Mission managers extended the STS-117 mission two days to gain some flexibility in preparing for the repair (DAILY, June 13). With the repair completed on the third EVA, a fourth EVA added on June 17 was to be devoted to furling an old solar array and "get-ahead" tasks on International Space Station assembly.

[KevinDavis]

[festus]

Fixed with staples and baling wire ?

I owned a car like this once. Like the shuttle it was a few decades old.

[brooklin]

And to think that I never knew staples would hold at high mach numbers.
These must be better staples than the ones I use when shingling my roof.