14 DAY TRIAL // After the successful launch last week, and the end of the space mission, the Discovery shuttle is ready to come back to the Earth's surface. The controversial thermal shield has been inspected with great care, and they have found that it is in perfect condition, good news for the crew of the shuttle after the incident yesterday.
Upon fixing a rotary joint, that has been experiencing intermittent vibration and power spikes for nearly two months, the crew working on its repair has found what seemed to be metal shavings everywhere, sticking to the device like a magnet.
It is not known yet what the origin of these debris is, but metal-to-metal grating is suspected. "It looks like a dusty table that you'd want to dust at home" said Daniel Tani.
The crew used duck tape to collect part of the mysterious debris, to bring back to Earth for further analysis.
The rotary joint three meter in diameter was launched just four months ago and it's used to control the solar panel wings on the right side of the space station, the left side rotary joint working just fine could indicate a fabrication defect. It will remain inactive until repair, to avoid further damage.
Engineers at NASA think the debris could bring a permanent damage, causing the joint to remain stuck in a position in which the solar light could not be efficiently captured. This will affect the whole operation of the International Space Station and disrupt critical experiment taking place. As a last-minute task, the astronauts checked the rail tracks for the space station's robot arm, and found a few micrometeorite dings on a handrail. This task was added as a precaution check, as a result of the astronauts cutting their gloves in previous missions, but had no explanation for how that happened.
Discovery has a go-ahead for re-entry on November 6th.