14 DAY TRIAL // As per schedule, the seven-astronaut crew aboard the shuttle Discovery conducted today the mandatory heat shield inspection of their spacecraft. They used a sensor-laden pole to take pictures of the underside of the ship, both of its bellies and the lower part of the wings, and then attempted to broadcast the datasets back to Mission Control, for further analysis. However, that proved to be impossible. A glitch in the main antenna dish on the shuttle prevented them from relaying the critical information, mission controllers announced in a briefing earlier today, Space reports.
“We can't talk through it. We can't send commands through it. Really nothing works with it at this point,” said at the conference Richard Jones, the shuttle flight director. The role of the antenna is to allow for large data packets to be transferred back and forth between the spacecraft and Mission Control. Without it, engineers on the ground cannot, for example, change major revision to Discovery's flight plan, nor can the astronauts beam back video of their activities onboard, or during docking.
For starters, sending data on the status of the heat shield is vitally important. The shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003 precisely because astronauts failed to discover the missing tiles of the heat shield. As the spacecraft attempted to reenter Earth's atmosphere, the lacking components allowed for a wing to be destroyed, which eventually condemned the entire shuttle and its crew. Since then, NASA has been conducting heat shield inspection on all flights, and revising the photos and scans astronauts collect in space with the sensor pole. Now, they find themselves unable to do that on account of the glitch.
Discovery is due to dock to the International Space Station on Wednesday, at 3:44 am EDT (0744 GMT). It is running the STS-131 resupply mission to the outpost, delivering a range of supplies, food, water, spare parts and scientific equipment. Most likely, the data the crew collected during the heat shield inspection will be sent to Mission Control from the ISS, if the antenna is not brought back online in time. Preliminary analysis of video footage collected during take-off shows that no significant damage came to the shuttle, but the information gathered by the crew is vital for clearing Discovery for landing.