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NASA's next shuttle mission is set for late May, when Discovery will deliver the enormous Japanese lab Kibo, which means hope. Endeavour delivered a storage compartment for the lab. But the Hubble Space Telescope mission, at the end of August, might wind up being postponed because of a slowdown in shuttle fuel-tank production. Only now, five years after the Columbia accident, are fuel tanks and their insulating foam skin being built from scratch, said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team. The fuel tank used to propel Endeavour into orbit on March 11 was the last one that was already in production when Columbia was destroyed, and so it was easier to make the post-accident safety changes. These changes, most if not all of them involving foam, took time to refine. NASA also became bogged down by a recurring fuel-gauge problem that finally was resolved a few months ago. "We're on a learning curve here," Cain said. Related Links: |
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