Discovery Foam Repair Snags Plan To Move Atlantis In Early

NASA may be facing yet another hurdle in its plan to launch two more shuttle flights before the end of 2007... and it has nothing to do with insulating foam.

Florida Today reports ongoing repairs to a set of huge metal doors on the Vehicle Assembly Building -- rusted out in places from years of exposure to the elements along Florida's Space Coast -- has kept NASA from utilizing both bays in the VAB to mate shuttles with external fuel tanks and solid-rocket boosters, in preparation for launch.

NASA has worked with only one bay for the past few years, as repairs were conducted. The 45-story-high doors were supposed to be replaced last year... but work is way behind schedule.

"No good deed goes unpunished," shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said. "The agency for 40 years neglected the Vehicle Assembly Building down in Florida. We have a magnificent structure that's going to be used by subsequent programs and we let it face the ocean breeze and all of that salt air. The mechanisms there have corroded and rusted to the point where we were concerned we might not be able to open the doors to get the launch vehicle out and that's clearly unacceptable."

Repairs are now due to be wrapped up by November 1. That's good news for future shuttle launches, but it poses a problem for the last shuttle mission scheduled for this year. Atlantis is due to head to the International Space Station in early December.

NASA had planned to move Discovery out of the active assembly bay this month -- one month earlier than necessary for its planned October 23 launch -- so Atlantis could move into position. There's a problem with that plan, though: Discovery is still there, and will be for some time as engineers repair foam covering believed to have caused damage during the launch of Endeavour last month (so, okay, this has a little something to do with the foam.)

Plans now call for Discovery to head to the pad at the end of this month... which cuts Atlantis' time in the VAB a bit close for comfort.

"For the last two years, we've been working with only one high bay and it's been a real constraint. We have to plan our work carefully and make sure that we do what we need to do," Hale said.

Also complicating things is the tight launch window for Atlantis' mission to deliver the ESA's Columbus science lab to the ISS. Due to the position of the station relative to the sun, if Atlantis doesn't launch by December 13, it will have to wait until next year.

FMI: www.nasa.gov