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NASA realizes debris that fell of external fuel tank yesterday came close to causing irrepairable damage to shuttle now in orbit. Fleet GROUNDED. More later Chances to return to flight again, no better than 50/50.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago The fuel sensors on Discovery's giant external tank passed initial tests early Tuesday as NASA fueled the spacecraft for the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster 2 1/2 years ago. NASA officials monitored the sensors throughout the three-hour fueling process to make sure they functioned properly. A faulty sensor reading forced NASA to scrub a launch attempt July 13 as the astronauts were boarding the spacecraft. "All the sensors are performing as expected," said NASA commentator Jessica Rye. Discovery and its seven astronauts were set to blast off for the...

Poised for Liftoff Space Shuttle Discovery rests in full view on the launch pad. Image above: The rolling back of Launch Pad 39B's Rotating Service Structure reveals orbiter Discovery. + Click for larger image. Image credit: NASA/KSC Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-114, NASA's Return to Flight mission, is set for Tuesday at 10:39 a.m. EDT. The launch pad's Rotating Service Structure (RSS) was rolled away from Discovery at 3:38 p.m. on Monday. When in place, the giant enveloping appendage is used to install payloads into an orbiter's cargo bay and provide protection from inclement weather. With the...

Image above: STS-114 Mission Specialists Charlie Camarda (left) and Steve Robinson (right) with Commander Eileen Collins at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility Sunday morning after practice in the Shuttle Training AircraftLaunch of Space Shuttle Discovery on NASA's Return to Flight mission is still on track for Tuesday at 10:39 a.m., NASA Test Director Pete Nickolenko announced during a morning briefing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Our teams have worked hard to prepare Space Shuttle Discovery and her crew for launch," Nickolenko said. According to International Space Station Mission Manager Scott Higginbotham, the hardware in Discovery's payload bay is ready for...

NASA Debates What to Do if Problem Returns Space shuttle Discovery's flag waves in the breeze as Discovery sits on the pad covered by the rotating service structure at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Sunday, July 24, 2005. The countdown is under way for a Tuesday morning launch.(AP Photo/Terry Renna) By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Shuttle managers debated Sunday about what to do — halt the countdown or fly — if a fuel gauge problem resurfaces right before the second launch attempt for NASA's oft-delayed return to space. Discovery is set to lift...

Against the backdrop of the delayed Discovery shuttle launch, Europe and Russia and decided to build a space shuttle to crack through the space monopoly held by NASA. Can they successfully take on the US? For years, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russians planned on creating their own spaceship, developing such probes as the EU's Hermes and the Russian Buran. But they never threatened the top place of the American space shuttles. Now, ESA and its Russian counterpart have come up with a plan for a new manned shuttle, the Clipper, which should make its maiden voyage by...

NASA is considering retiring a Space Shuttle orbiter in 2007 and beginning modifications to one Shuttle launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center under a plan now being reviewed at NASA headquarters, according to senior agency sources. Driving the idea of a phased retirement of the space vehicles are two concerns. The first is a desire for finding new sources of funds to pay for advancement of the President's moon-to-Mars plan. And secondly NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin's fears of a third Shuttle accident. A source familiar with Griffin's thinking said he is worried that an age-related malfunction would trigger...

So I heard on the news last night a window fell our of the shuttle and hit the tail while on the launch pad - so they had to check to see if it did any damage. 1) how does a window fall out of an aircraft 2) how long and how many times has the equipment been checked?? What is going on that something can fall off the aircraft while on the launch pad.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA managers put a brief but embarrassing setback behind them as the countdown to the first space shuttle flight in 2 1/2 years entered its final hours Wednesday, with only predicted thunderstorms posing some concern. A temporary window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail Tuesday afternoon, just two hours after NASA declared Discovery ready to return the nation to space for the first time since the Columbia disaster. The mishap was an eerie reminder of the very thing that doomed Columbia — damage to the spaceship's fragile thermal shield. Discovery...

Shuttle ready, but "loose ends" remain CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA managers said on Monday they are confident they can launch the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster, but noted some unresolved issues that could still force a delay. Launch is scheduled for 3:51 p.m. (2051 BST) on Wednesday and forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance that weather conditions will be acceptable for liftoff. "We have a couple of loose ends to tie up, but I wouldn't consider them major," said Wayne Hale, the deputy shuttle program manager. "I would say that we do have to...

Discovery, the first space shuttle to be launched since the Columbia crash two years ago, will carry a photograph of India-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla and mementos of her colleagues who perished in the tragedy. Jean P Harrison, widower of Chawla, said he was sending a photograph of his wife aboard Discovery, which is poised for liftoff day with a five-man, two-woman crew on Wednesday. The picture of Kalpana is from her college days in India, where she is sitting in her dorm room surrounded by photographs of aircraft and one of a space shuttle. The countdown for the Discovery launch...

Had things gone differently, CNN's Miles O'Brien could have been on the Space Shuttle right about now. Instead, this week, the anchor and longtime space correspondent will watch the Space Shuttle Discovery go up Wednesday, taking with it a little bit of his dream to someday be in space. "It marks the kind of an end of a personal era for me," O'Brien said. Turns out, CNN and NASA were only weeks away from announcing O'Brien was going to be the first journalist in space, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated before landing two years ago. O'Brien was on the...

Griffin Favors Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster for Launching CEV NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said Monday that he favors launching the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) on a single solid rocket booster based on the ones that for the past two decades have helped lift the space shuttle off the launch pad. The so-called single stick approach, which refers to the use of a single solid rocket booster, has been touted by solid rocket maker ATK Thiokol as the safest and simplest solution to launching the CEV. The solid rocket would require an upper stage engine. Boeing and Lockheed Martin, meanwhile,...

CAPE CANAVERAL -- Discovery's planned launch next month will mark the beginning of the end of the space-shuttle program, but parts of the rocket could help propel astronauts to the moon and beyond long after the current fleet of ships is retired.

NASA Bill Hangs Condition on Shuttle Retirement WASHINGTON — The senior U.S. senators from Florida and Texas are pushing back against NASA’s plan to retire the U.S. space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade regardless of whether a replacement vehicle is ready to enter service by then. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee, and Bill Nelson (Fla.), her Democratic counterpart, introduced a bill June 21 that would require NASA to keep the space shuttle orbiter flying until a new crew transport vehicle has flown. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is adamant...

Like the monster in some ghastly horror movie rising from the dead for the umpteenth time, the space shuttle is back on the launch pad. This grotesque, lethal white elephant — 14 deaths in 113 flights — is the grandest, grossest technological folly of our age. If the shuttle has any reason for existing, it is as an exceptionally clear symbol of our corrupt, sentimental, and dysfunctional political system. Its flights accomplish nothing and cost half a billion per. That, at least, is what a flight costs when the vehicle survives. If a shuttle blows up — which, depending on...

Cape Canaveral (UPI) Private companies looking to NASA to finance development of new launch vehicles to carry passenger ships to space might want to re-consider, because the leading contender for carrying the space agency's new Crew Exploration Vehicle to orbit already exists. "I already have a heavy-lift vehicle," NASA administrator Michael Griffin told reporters at an informal briefing last week at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA has not ruled out expendable launch vehicles built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, nor new boosters in the making, such as Space Exploration Technology's Falcon 5, but Griffin clearly favors using components of the...

Somewhere in the middle of a frozen swamp in Kazakhstan, a capsule containing a Russian, American and an Italian landed without incident. Since the grounding of the Space Shuttle, the Soviets have been providing the space taxi to get people back and forth from the almost forgotten city in orbit. Economic issues and the war on terrorism have put the International Space Station way on the back burner. News coverage is scarce at best, and for the most part, I think many have forgotten that we still have people and equipment orbitting the earth. The ISS is a huge project,...

The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster happend on Saturday 1st, February, 2003 and was the second Space Shuttle Disaster and the first shuttle lost on landing. There was shock around the world over the tragedy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on January 16th, 2003 at 9.39am CST. Columbia (Flight STS-107) was on a 16-day science research mission in Earth orbit which performed experiments in space. It was the 113th mission. Columbia was the oldest space shuttle in the fleet of four. It was the first space shuttle to be launched in Earth orbit in 1981. The crew of Space Shuttle...