Officials at the American Space Agency (NASA) announced on Friday that there is a high probability that the flight including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, will be delayed at least until the end of the year.
Officials at the American Space Agency (NASA) announced on Friday that there is a high probability that the flight including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, will be delayed at least until the end of the year.
Ramon and the crew of the shuttle "Columbia" were supposed to leave on Tuesday for a research mission in space, which includes an experiment by Tel Aviv University, which will investigate the effect of dust storms on the climate in the Middle East. However, in recent months tiny cracks were discovered in the fuel tubes of the four NASA shuttles, and the agency decided to ground the entire fleet for inspection and evaluation.
The director of NASA's shuttle program, Ron Ditmore, said in a press briefing that "NASA is increasingly troubled by the combination of the schedule of the three missions planned to launch before the end of the year." According to him, the earliest launch date is September 26, but "it is unlikely (that the Columbia mission) will come out first". However, he noted that no decision has yet been made on the matter.
The head of the Israeli Space Agency, Avi Har-Evan, says that he was informed by NASA that on July 31 a final decision will be made on the new schedule for the launch of Columbia and the other missions. In the letter sent by Har-Evan to the project management and in the meeting between the Minister of Science Matan Vilnai and the management, the implications of the postponement of the mission were described. According to Har-Evan, postponing the mission until later than October will harm the experiment. "Such a postponement would be very bad for us", he says, "after October we will have winter weather, there are clouds and rains, which will reduce the effectiveness of the experiment".
However, says Har-Evan, "it is not clear what the decision will be." The exception of the other two missions planned for the year is the International Space Station, and in determining the new date for their launch, NASA must also take into account the schedules of the other partners in the station.
NASA engineers still don't know what caused the cracks. According to Ditmore, this week the agency will decide what to do about the cracks. Among the options: welding the cracks (the length of which does not exceed 7.5 millimeters); and drilling small holes in their ends to keep them from expanding; There is also a possibility, not very likely, that it will be decided that the shuttles are safe to fly as they are, and there is no need to repair the cracks.
