Space cameras to look for shuttle flaws

By Tariq Malik

updated 6:02 p.m. ET July 7, 2005

When the space shuttle Discovery arrives at the international space station this month, two astronauts will have the photo opportunity of a lifetime.

Armed with digital high-resolution cameras, the station's expedition commander, Sergei Krikalev, and flight engineer John Phillips will take what flight controllers and trainers hope will be a comprehensive survey of the protective thermal tiles that line Discovery’s belly.

“They will be doing some test imagery in the next week and charging camera batteries,” astronaut trainer Steven Berenzweig, an expert on shuttle and station photography at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in a telephone interview. “We want them to get some practice with their focus and mapping techniques.”

Discovery — NASA’s first space shuttle to fly since the Columbia disaster — is poised to launch as early as July 13 and could reach the space station on July 15, according to its mission timeline.

The tile survey images taken by the space station crew will be relayed back to engineers on Earth, where they will be studied for signs of any damage. They represent only one of two critical photography sessions during Discovery’s STS-114 flight. The other, to be conducted just after launch by the STS-114 crew, will document how Discovery’s modified external tank weathered the spaceflight.

“This is going to be the most photographed shuttle mission that’s ever launched,” veteran astronaut Eileen Collins, commander of Discovery’s STS-114 flight, said in a preflight mission briefing.

Columbia’s thermal protective skin was damaged by foam debris from its external tank during launch, which punctured a wing panel and allowed hot gases to breach the shuttle’s skin during re-entry. The orbiter broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, killing its seven-astronaut crew.

Serious snapshots
The docking of any space vehicle — manned or otherwise — at the space station is just cause for crew members to grab their cameras. But for STS-114, it is more than a matter of pretty pictures.

“Other images of the orbiter [docking] in the past have been almost more of a public affairs type of thing,” Berenzweig said.

But this time around, shuttle engineers will scrutinize the Expedition 11 crew’s images to determine whether Discovery’s thermal protection system is sound enough for the return trip through Earth’s atmosphere, which is currently scheduled for July 25. If everything checks out, the crew can return safely. If extensive damage is found — a scenario that flight controllers believe is unlikely — the shuttle crew could seek refuge aboard the space station and await a rescue orbiter.

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