Written by: Samuel K. Sloan (Farpoint Media Exec. News Dir.)
After two weeks of nail-biting concern over whether or not the NASA shuttle Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew should return to Earth in the damaged Shuttle with Hurricane Dean barrelling down on the Gulf, all those concerns were set aside today at 12:32 PM EDT as Edeavour and crew made a flawless landing at the Florida Cape Center.
Commander Scott Kelly brought his STS-118 crew come safely after a mission that was not without some serious complications, but one that, in the greater scheme of things, was a resounding success.
Two weeks ago the lift-off appeared to be a textbook offering, but it was soon discovered that a 3-inch long and 2-inch deep gouge had been ripped from the underbelling of the Shuttle by the infamous booster rocket foam during its separation from the Shuttle once it made its point of no return.
Then, several days later, during a routine space walk to work on additions to the ISS, a pair of gloves worn by Canadian astronaut David Williams was torn while in the vaccum of space. He suffered no damage to tissue.
All things tend to come in threes, and this mission was no exception. After the glove situation was taken care of, and after extensive review of the underbelly of the craft, NASA engineers decided repair to the gouge was unnecessary as reaching the site would be more of a hazard to the health of the team than bringing the ship home through the intense heat generated as the Shuttle enters Earth’s atmosphere.
Then the third shoe dropped when along came Hurricane Dean hurtling itself right at the Gulf and threatening the Mexico/Texas coastline and Mission Control Headquarters. As a result Endeavour’s crew were forced to curtail their mission by one day and shut the doors between them and the ISS, bidding farewell to the remaining three Space Station astronauts and headed home a day early.
Reporting from orbit on the way back home a message came in to Mission Control from shuttle Commander Kelly, “Although it’s been a short two weeks, we’ve accomplished a lot. We still look very much forward to coming home today.”
And, come home they did with mission accomplished. Once on the ground, further close-up inspection of the Shuttle Endeavour revealed some additional damage, but nothing that would have caused a life-threatening situation to the crew.
“This flight has been extraordinarily productive,” said NASA space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. “Endeavour, in fact, has performed nearly flawlessly.”
The 13-day mission showcased a record four spacewalks (Williams clocked more walks in space than any previous Canadian astronaut) in order to add Starboard 5 truss and the Port 6 truss, to be used for new additions to the lab and living quarters scheduled for the next mission. Spacers were also added to make preparation for the final set of U.S. solar arrays, which also will be added on a future shuttle flight. Other aspects of the mission plan, such as replenishing O2 supplies and water rations, repair to certain electronics and Russian computer modules went without a hitch. The STS-118 flight also returned with a bit of waste products that have been building up in the orbiting space station, along with some crucial lab experiments that have been awaiting their return to Earth for detailed analysis by scientists.
“From our perspective, we’re completely satisfied with the mission,” said Mike Suffredini, NASA’s ISS program manager, of STS-118. “It met every objective that we needed to continue on with assembly.”
The NASA Shuttle teams are starting to feel a little pressure to ensure completion of all ISS Mission tasks as the September 2010 deadline approaches. That is the projected time for the current Shuttle Fleet to be decommissioned and mothballed for the newer, sleeker and smaller Apollo-like craft.
There are still at least three STS missions on the slate between now and right after the first of the year. The Discovery on October 23rd, Atlantis delivers the Harmony node and the ESA’s Columbus Lab in December. Endeavour returns to the ISS in February 2008 for installation of the first node for the Japanese Kibo Lab.
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