Avi Blizovsky
Workers inspecting the space shuttle Atlantis this week discovered a tiny hole created by the impact of a piece of space debris. The shrapnel punched a harmless hole in the panel of one of the radiators during the shuttle's flight about a month ago. "The astronauts on Atlantis were not in danger," said NASA spokeswoman Kaylee Haring.
The impact was not on one of the important parts of the shuttle's heat shield, which protect it from the hot gases entering the atmosphere. The shuttle's huge radiator system is attached to the cargo deck doors and is essential for cooling the shuttle while in orbit. When the shuttle opens the cargo deck doors in space, all eight radiator panels are exposed. When the spacecraft is about to land and the cargo deck doors are locked the radiator is no longer used to cool the shuttle.
The shrapnel hit the right radiator panel, Herring said. NASA does not know if the object was a small meteorite or man-made space junk because it disintegrated.
"It did not cause any damage, and there was no danger in entering the atmosphere," said the spokeswoman. "The diameter of the hole is about a tenth of an inch (0.3 cm), at the top of one of the panels, similar or even greater damage was already discovered on one of the flights in 1995.
During the flight, space debris was observed floating near the Atlantis shuttle, but apparently it was not a piece of debris that hit the panel, said Mike Currie, a spokesman for United Space Alliance, NASA's prime contractor for operating the space shuttle.
According to Haring, the additional test the astronauts did did not reveal the hole because NASA does not look for this type of damage.
As you may recall, the Columbia disaster was caused by a small hole in the wing's reinforcement panel, where the fragment that struck fell during takeoff from the external fuel tank. After the disaster, NASA began comprehensive tests of the shuttle both using cameras during the launch and by the astronauts in space.
Mission Statement STS-115
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