14 DAY TRIAL // A member of the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) may not be able to accompany his colleagues in their journey to low-Earth orbit. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra had a bicycle accident over the weekend, and appears to have broken his hip.
Up until this point, the American space agency has not released any sort of statement related to the reports that sprung up in the media about Kopra's conditions. In other words, the fact that his hip is truly broken has not yet been confirmed officially.
Kopra, 47, was to be a member of the six-astronaut crew that will fly the space shuttle Discovery on its final mission ever. Originally, the flight was supposed to take place in early November 2010, but various technical issues have delayed the launch to February 24.
This is the last thing that NASA needed under the circumstances. Its mission managers and engineers have been struggling for months to put Discovery back on track, and make it fit for take-off.
Troubles with the shuttle began when a routine check-up revealed the existence of a glitch in a fuel valve regulating the flow of liquid propellant from the external fuel tank (EFT) to the orbiter's main engines.
After that glitch was taken care of, one of the orbital maneuvering engine pods signaled a malfunction in the computer that was supposed to handle its commands. But that was not the worst of it.
Soon after these repairs were made, NASA experts began detecting cracks on Discovery's EFT, and also in the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) connecting the two. As the weaknesses were found, and the cracks were covered, more and more were being discovered.
At one point, NASA decided to take the shuttle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), pending full analysis, Universe Today reports.
Thorough X-ray studies of the EFT determined that it was made of a batch of material that was structurally-weaker than the norm. At this point, engineers are working on reinforcing the portions of the tank that suffer most stress during launch.
They estimate that the repairs will be ready in time to allow for a February 24 launch date. This is when the space shuttle Endeavor was supposed to launch, had the original NASA launch manifest been respected.
Now Kopra's injury adds another concern. The astronaut was one of the two who were supposed to carry out the first spacewalk of the STS-133 mission. These extravehicular activities (EVA) take months to years to prepare for.