...But What If Another Problem Is Found?

In what sounds like a little like the story of the man who refused to go to the doctor ("if I go, he may find there's something wrong with me"), NASA engineers are currently mulling over whether to conduct a test fueling of the space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank.

The test -- which would be held in the first part of June, about one month before the scheduled July 1 launch of Discovery -- would determine whether the four fuel level sensors NASA scientists replaced last month are now working properly.

NASA made the decision to replace the old sensors last month, after one of the sensors gave false readings.

The decision to replace the sensors delayed the shuttle's launch from May to its current July date. There is enough time in the current schedule to accommodate the test, officials said, but another sensor swap would delay Discovery's liftoff even more.

For the test, more than a half-million gallons of supercooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen would be pumped into the 15-story tank, NASA officials said Wednesday. Scientists would then analyze whether the sensors -- which function much as an automobile's fuel gauge does -- are giving accurate readings of the fuel levels in the tank.

Should the fuel sensors not work properly at launch, the result could be the premature shutdown of the shuttle's main engines... or, a longer-than-expected fuel burn. Either scenario could be catastrophic.

Kyle Herring, a spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, told Florida Today that engineers have been asked to draw up plans for the fueling test -- but that managers still have not made a final decision on whether to carry it out or not.

A decision on the test is expected shortly.

FMI: www.nasa.gov