blivet radio
The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Saturday, July 13, 2002

Shuttle News Shuttle launches delayed until September. "Shuttle managers said they now believe that the cracks have a single root cause unrelated to age, as similar cracks have been found in flow liners for hydrogen fuel lines in all four orbiters regardless of their ages. Officials said they don't know if the cracks do pose a safety problem, although in theory if the cracks expanded, pieces of material could break off and inject themselves in turbopumps, shutting down the engines during flight. NASA is looking into solutions that would involve repairing rather than replacing the flow liners, since spare parts are not available and replacement would involve many additional months of delays." [spacetoday.net] Space Shuttle Fleet Grounded Until September. "The likelihood that the cracks are not appearing randomly suggests they do not pose as great a safety risk as NASA thought when the mysterious flaws were first identified, Dittemore said. However, he said NASA is engaged in a broad effort to determine why the cracks occurred and how best to repair the pipes. "My concern from a safety point of view has diminished...but I'm not saying I'm ready to go fly."" [Space.com] Space shuttle flights off until at least September. ""My concern from a safety point of view has been diminished because of (tests and analyses) over the past several weeks," Dittemore said. "That's not to say I'm ready to go fly. I still need to understand more about these cracks and I still need to understand more about the potential for these cracks to grow." Until then, he said, "we will not fly." Eleven cracks were found in all, three each aboard Atlantis, Discovery and Columbia and two aboard Endeavour. Seven of the cracks were found in flow liners leading to a shuttle's No. 1 main engine, the one located directly under the ship's vertical stabilizer. The other four cracks were found in liners leading to the No. 2 engine position. Six cracks were circumferential a five were axial. Five were discovered visually, two by ultrasound and four using eddy currents, an electrical test that can find areas of weakness in an alloy. In addition, engineers found a similar crack in a main engine test article used to test fire shuttle engine clusters many years ago at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi." [Spaceflight Now] 1:25:07 PM    comment   trackback []