Space cameras to look for shuttle flaws

Krikalev and Phillips are outfitted with Kodak CDCS 660 digital cameras, one with a 400mm lens to resolve tile features down to 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters), and the other with an 800mm equivalent for photographs down to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in resolution.

”The space shuttle will stop directly below the space station, and Sergei and I will be looking out two different windows looking straight down at the space shuttle,” Phillips said in a preflight NASA interview, adding that he expects Discovery’s docking to be a mission highlight.

“Unfortunately, it's not just a sightseeing kind of thing. We can't say, ‘Well, there's the shuttle silhouetted against the Great Barrier Reef.’ We're going to be busy taking exactly the pictures that we're programmed to take.”

The astronauts will use the 800mm lens to image Discovery’s sensitive tile regions, such as its wheel well doors, while the 400mm camera will document the overall condition of orbiter tiles, NASA officials said.

Time crunch
Krikalev and Phillips have about 93 seconds to sweep their camera lenses across overlapping swatches of Discovery’s tile-covered belly.

“Each one of their shots has about 40 to 50 percent overlap from the one before it,” Berenzweig said. “We’re hoping they will get two to three complete mapping passes during the time.”

During Discovery’s docking approach, Collins will hold Discovery about 600 feet (182 meters) from the space station and perform a “rendezvous pitch maneuver,” which flips the orbiter to present its underside toward the space station, then complete the circle. The entire maneuver takes about nine minutes.

“It's not an easy task,” Krikalev said of the tile survey during a NASA interview. “It's very time-critical because the shuttle cannot stay for a long time near, near station.”

Tank watch
Discovery’s station docking time has been scheduled to provide optimum lighting conditions for the Expedition 11 crew’s photographs, and the same goes for the shuttle’s external tank separation.

“The launch will be scheduled in a way that we still have sunlight when we separate from the external tank,” Collins said.

STS-114 astronauts will photograph Discovery’s external tank departure earlier than in past shuttle missions to ensure a good look at the tank’s condition. A new digital camera has replaced the 35mm film camera inside Discovery’s right umbilical well for additional external tank imagery. Standard film cameras in the orbiter’s left umbilical well will also record the external tank separation.

Meanwhile, the tank too bears a television camera to broadcast images of itself and Discovery’s underside to flight controllers.

“It’s a huge wealth of data coming down, and we have a lot of people who are set to receive that data,” said STS-114 mission specialist Andrew Thomas.

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