Mystery object delays space shuttle’s return

An unidentified, apparently rectangular object orbiting below and at the same speed as the space shuttle Atlantis may have been shaken loose from the spacecraft, leading NASA officials to scramble for information on whether the vehicle remains safe to make the fiery descent back to Earth.

The return, initially scheduled for today, was put off for at least a day to allow the Atlantis crew and ground control to learn more about the condition of the craft. Bad weather at the Kennedy Space Center also made a return today impossible, but the big concern is what appears to be debris orbiting beneath the shuttle.

“The question is: What is it?” Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager, said Tuesday during a briefing in Houston. “Is it something benign, or is it something more critical we should pay attention to? We want to make sure we’re safe before committing to that critical journey through the atmosphere.”

Hale said the crew needed the extra day to use its many cameras – and perhaps its robotic arm and 50-foot boom, with sensors and cameras at the end – to scan the spacecraft for possible damage. He said NASA expected to find no serious problems, because the sensitive heat shield has already been inspected twice and found to be in good shape.

But NASA has a number of contingencies if Atlantis has been damaged, he said. The crew has four types of material that astronauts could use to make repairs during a spacewalk, he said, and Atlantis could even return to the International Space Station, which it left Sunday, to do the work.

“If it is a rupture … some repair can be done (without going back) to the space station,” Hale said. “We will weigh that very carefully. We do have the option of returning to the ISS.”

A Soyuz spacecraft with two astronauts and a space tourist blasted off Monday for a rendezvous today with the space station, complicating any plans for an Atlantis return there.

Hale said the unidentified object was noticed by ground crew that was monitoring video being taken from the shuttle as part of NASA’s climate change observation program. He said he didn’t think NASA would be able to determine what the object was, or even how close it is to the shuttle, because the camera resolution is not good enough. But he said the fact that the black object is orbiting at the same speed and on the same path as the shuttle makes it likely that it came off Atlantis.

“Our real emphasis is ensuring the orbiter is safe,” he said. “It will probably always remain a mystery as to what (the object) was.”

NASA officials have historical reason for concern about the object. The space shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry in 2003, and later investigations determined that insulating foam that fell off the shuttle on launch had breached the heat shielding in one wing, which failed in the heat and pressure of re-entering the atmosphere. Consequently, any possibility that debris hit the spacecraft is considered a serious matter.

Hale said NASA had detected a small hit to the thermal heat shield on takeoff but said the area was examined during spacewalks at the space station and no problems were found. He speculated that any possible damage to the craft may well have occurred during a planned test Tuesday morning of the hydraulic system and maneuvering jets – activities that can shake the vehicle vigorously.