By Arun Kumar
IANS
Washington : As US space shuttle Atlantis hurtled up to bring Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams back home after a six month sojourn in space, NASA experts studied a damaged thermal blanket at its rear.
Stitches holding the blanket that forms part of the shuttle's heat protection may have ripped during Friday's launch, causing a few inches of the thick material to peel away from Atlantis, US space agency NASA said.
If experts determine the damage poses a threat to the safety of the shuttle, which encounters high temperatures when it returns to earth a space walking astronaut could repair it, officials said at a briefing at Johnson Space Centre in Houston.
On Saturday evening, Atlantis was about 4,000 miles behind the space station and catching up at the rate of 713 miles per orbit. It's due to reach an awaiting Sunita at the International Space Station Sunday afternoon (1:00 a.m. IST Monday).
Atlantis' seven crew members inspected the spacecraft's heat shield using its robotic arm and an attached boom extension to check its underside, nose cap and leading edges of the wings as well as hard to reach shuttle surfaces.
The robotic arm cameras were used to take a closer look at an area of insulation blanket on the port orbital manoeuvring system pod that pulled away from adjacent thermal tiles. Experts on ground are analysing the imagery to determine if any repairs are needed.
Since the 2003 Columbia accident, the space agency has been particularly sensitive to issues involving fuel tank foam. Columbia's tank shed a piece of insulation during lift off, which smashed into the ship's wing and broke a hole in its heat shield. The shuttle was destroyed as it attempted to fly through the atmosphere for landing 16 days later, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including Indian-born Kalpana Chawla on her second space mission.
The crew also prepared for their arrival at the Space Station checking the extension of the shuttle's docking ring and the tools they will use to rendezvous and link up with the station.
Astronaut Clay Anderson will replace Williams who is also set to break astronaut Shannon Lucid's record for the longest space flight ever by a woman — 188 days and 4 hours – three days before Atlantis brings her back to Earth June 19.
Anderson will join Russian Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov at the space station and would return with this year's third NASA space mission in October.
Atlants was originally scheduled to fly in mid-March, but two weeks before blast-off the spaceship's fuel tank was damaged during a freak hailstorm that passed over the Kennedy Space Centre Feb 26 and needed extensive repairs.