14 DAY TRIAL // After several days of constant pressure and worrying, NASA engineers, mission controllers, and officials can breathe in relief. The knob that has been stuck between the front-side window and the instrument panel inside the cockpit of space shuttle Atlantis has now been removed. At this moment, experts with the American space agency are analyzing the three-layered, pane window in minute detail, in an attempt to discover any flaws that the knob may have caused, which could lead to the glass losing its structural integrity during ascent or descent in future missions.
All efforts are now focused on evaluating the full extent of the damage caused by the knob on the inside pressure pane of the window. If analysts deem it too dangerous for the ship and the crew to remain there, then engineers will have to replace it, in an operation that is not technically done on the fly. Rather, the inside of the window panes are only changed when the shuttles are flown for extended maintenance in California. After each mission, the outside panes are changed, but those on the inside offer no reason for such an action.
NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said that it was still too soon to determine whether the November 12th scheduled lift-off for shuttle Atlantis would be delayed or not, Space informs. However, the situation as a whole got solved a lot faster and easier than most would have expected. At one point, analysts said that the shuttle might even be retired early, because, if the knob had remained stuck, then the entire instrument panel would have had to be removed, which would have taken many months to complete. And, with the end of the shuttle program scheduled for 2010, it was unclear if Atlantis would be able to fly again by that time.
The procedure through which the knob was eventually removed was not at all simple. First, technicians sprayed it with liquid nitrogen, so as to slightly decrease its volume. Immediately afterwards, the knob showed signs of movement. Then, they sealed the shuttle's cabin, and increased the pressure inside until it reached about 17 pounds per square inch, as opposed to the 14.7 pounds per square inch pressure recorded during an average shuttle flight. The knob then came loose, and technicians proceeded immediately to measuring the damage it had caused.
“It's probably way too premature to say what the ramifications are now that the knob has been removed,” Herring concluded.