Object gesignaleerd boven aarde, landing Atlantisch uitgesteld Bron CNN

Mystery object delays shuttle landing



HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA postponed the return of space shuttle Atlantis for at least a day after a small, mysterious object apparently fell off the ship in orbit Tuesday and raised fears that the spacecraft might not be able to make the journey home.
Space agency officials wanted extra time to establish whether the object was a vital piece of the shuttle -- such as the tiles that protect it from the blowtorch heat of re-entry -- and whether it damaged the spacecraft when it fell away. (Watch the mystery object -- :56)
"The question is: What is it? Is it something benign? ... Or is it something more critical we should pay attention to?" said Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager. "We want to make sure we're safe to land before we commit to that rather incredible journey through the Earth's atmosphere."
The shuttle has enough supplies to stay in space until Saturday while engineers on the ground figure out whether the shuttle can safely make the journey home.
Before the postponement, Atlantis had been scheduled to touch down just before daybreak Wednesday, when the weather forecast wasn't favorable for landing for anyway.
The incident came near the end of what had been a nearly flawless mission devoted to restarting construction of the international space station for the first time since the Columbia tragedy 3 1/2 years ago.
Mission Control spotted the baffling object -- the size of which was not immediately determined -- with a video camera in the shuttle's cargo bay. The object probably came out of the cargo bay early Tuesday, officials said.
The object floated near the shuttle in the same orbit for a while, slipping farther and farther away until it was just a dark speck in NASA video beamed down to Earth.
NASA engineers said they think the object may have shook loose from the shuttle during the firing of jets in preparation for landing. Sensors on the shuttle's right wing detected some kind of impact about the same time the object was first spotted.
But NASA officials said the fact that all of the sensors in that section were triggered -- rather than just one or two -- suggests they were set off by vibrations from the jet firings.
Officials were not optimistic they would be able to identify the object, since the possibilities were almost endless, ranging from harmless ice to crucial thermal protection tiles.
So the space agency concentrated on using a half-dozen cameras in the shuttle's cargo bay and on its robotic arm to look for any damage to the shuttle, especially to its thermal skin or any mechanical systems from the cargo bay.
NASA managers may order Atlantis' robotic arm to be taken out again for an inspection.
The space did not rule out the possibility of a spacewalk to make repairs or, if the spacecraft is too damaged, sending the Atlantis crew to take refuge in the space station and await rescue by another shuttle -- a scenario that NASA has been developing ever since the Columbia disaster.
None of the Air Force Space Command's radar or telescopes has been able to locate the object, said Sgt. Jennifer Thibault, a spokeswoman for the command, which is assisting NASA.
The space agency has been especially alert to damage to the shuttle's heat shield since the Columbia tragedy. A piece of foam broke off Columbia's external fuel tank during liftoff and gashed a wing, allowing hot gases to penetrate the spacecraft during its return to Earth. The ship disintegrated, and all seven astronauts died.
Atlantis was inspected repeatedly during its flight, and up until Tuesday, NASA said the ship had come through the launch and more than a week in orbit in remarkably good shape.
During their mission, Atlantis' astronauts completed three difficult spacewalks to connect a 17 1/2-ton addition to the special station and help open up two 240-foot solar arrays that will generate electricity.
Astronauts and cosmonauts have seen strange objects in orbit for years, usually debris, and thought nothing of it, said Roald Sagdeev, a former top Soviet space adviser and director of the East West Space Science Center at the University of Maryland.
This is the first time a space agency is taking an unknown object so seriously, and rightly so, he said.
"It's better to be very cautious," Sagdeev said.