July 25, 2005
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Space shuttle Discovery mission specialist Charles Camarda, left, commander Eileen Collins and mission specialist Stephen Robinson after practicing landings in the shuttle training aircraft on Sunday at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla
Countdown for Discovery Enters Final Hours
NASA Says it May Bend its Safety Rules for Faulty Fuel Gauge
By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press
Monday, July 25, 2005; 4:48 PM
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — With the countdown entering its final hours and a fuel gauge problem still unexplained, NASA said it is prepared to bend its long-standing safety rules to launch the shuttle Tuesday on the first flight since Columbia’s doomed mission 2 1/2 years ago.
Discovery and a crew of seven were set to blast off for the international space station at 10:39 a.m., after a two-week delay caused by a malfunctioning hydrogen fuel gauge in the spaceship’s giant external tank.
Nature, rather than the fuel gauge, culd ultimately decide whether Discovery takes off. Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather at 60 percent, with rain and storm clouds both posing threats.
A had the paperwork ready to go in case the equipment trouble reappeared and the space agency’s managers decided to press ahead with the launch with just three of the four fuel gauges working. That would mean deviating from a rule instituted after the 1986 Challenger explosion.
“There’s very little in life that is 100 percent guaranteed, and there’s probably less in rocket science that’s 100 percent guaranteed,” deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said over the weekend. “That is part of the risk we take.”
The fuel gauges are designed to prevent the main engines from running too long or not long enough, in case the fuel tank is leaking or some other major breakdown occurs. An engine shutdown at the wrong time could prove catastrophic, forcing the astronauts to attempt a risky emergency landing overseas, or leading to a ruptured engine.
Both Hale and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin noted that multiple failures would have to occur in multiple systems for the worst-case scenario to come true.
Only two gauges, or sensors, are needed to do the job. But ever since NASA’s return to space in 1988, the space agency has decreed that all four have to work to proceed with launch.
NASA test director Pete Nickolenko said Monday he did not remember the last time one of the “launch commit criteria,” as the rules are called, was waived. But he expressed confidence in NASA’s game plan and said the space agency had done everything possible to understand the fuel gauge problem, which first cropped up during a test in April and resurfaced during a launch attempt July 13.
Over the past few days, NASA rewired two of the sensors to try to diagnose the trouble and repaired faulty electrical grounding aboard Discovery in hopes that would solve the problem.
“Bottom line is we’ve performed a lot of analysis and understanding and I think we’re smarter in understanding exactly what we have on the condition and what we’ve got with our systems,” Nickolenko said.
But a retired agent in NASA’s inspector general office, Joseph Gutheinz, said the space agency does not appear to have learned its lesson with Columbia.
“It is clear to me that NASA continues to put mission over safety,” Gutheinz said. “I fear that if NASA is wrong this time, as they were for Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, manned space missions may be halted for a very long time in the United States.”
Randy Avera, a former NASA engineer who helped develop the shuttle’s inspection program, also questioned the space agency’s willingness to bend the launch rule. He said it reminds him of the thinking that led to the Challenger accident, which was blamed on a cold-stiffened O-ring seal in a booster rocket and NASA inattention to safety.
Columbia was doomed by a a chunk of foam insulation that broke off the fuel tank at liftoff and damaged the wing. The shuttle disintegrated during its return to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The accident was blamed, in part, on NASA’s “broken safety culture,” or a tendency to downplay risks.
Some family members of the fallen Columbia astronauts planned to return for launch try No. 2. The VIP list was topped by first lady Laura Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, her brother-in-law.
NASA is down to the last week of its latest launch window for Discovery.
Discovery has until the beginning of August to fly to the space station on a 12-day supply and repair mission; the next launch opportunity will not come until Sept. 9.
The launch window is dictated by the space station’s position and NASA’s insistence on a daylight liftoff to provide good views for the more than 100 cameras that will be checking for any Columbia-type launch damage.
While in orbit, Discovery’s crew will inspect the most vulnerable areas of the spacecraft, using a new 50-foot, laser-tipped boom, and practice repairing samples of deliberately damaged thermal tile and panels.
© 2005 The Associated Press
