Shuttle, looking good, heads toward space station

By Staff
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HOUSTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) A day-long damage inspection of space shuttle Endeavour turned up no obvious problems as the orbiter headed toward the International Space Station with a crew that includes a former school teacher who waited 22 years to fly.

Endeavour was scheduled to hook up today with the space outpost for a stay in which astronauts will add a two-ton metal beam to the station's structure in another step toward completion of the 100 billion dollars international project.

The Endeavour crew used a sensor-laden robot arm to closely scan the shuttle's wings and nosecap for any damage that might have occurred during Wednesday's launch from Florida.

Such inspections have become standard second-day procedure for shuttle crews since Columbia broke apart while returning to Earth in 2003, doomed by flying debris at launch which caused wing heat shield damage that went undetected.

The seven Columbia astronauts died in the accident and the shuttle fleet was grounded for 2 1/2 years as NASA reviewed and revised its safety procedures.

NASA mission management team chairman John Shannon said in a briefing at Johnson Space Center that small bits of debris flew from the shuttle fuel tank as Endeavour took off, but none was believed to be ''significant.'' While NASA engineers still had to study data from yesterday's nspection, flight director Matt Abbott said video from the scan was encouraging.

''It looked very, very clean,'' he said, meaning no heat shield nicks were visible.

Space station crew members will photograph the shuttle's belly as it approaches on Friday and transmit the images to NASA for study, and another inspection will be performed before Endeavour heads for home in about two weeks.

Included in the Endeavour crew is Barbara Morgan, 55, who starting in 1985 trained as the backup to fellow school teacher Christa McAuliffe, one of seven astronauts killed on space shuttle Challenger when its fuel tank exploded shortly after takeoff in 1986.

Morgan taught in Idaho after the disaster until she officially joined NASA as an astronaut in 1998. During the flight, she will take questions from school children at least once, but her primary tasks will be operating robot arms on the spacecraft and supervising cargo transfer.

Yesterday, she ran the shuttle's robot arm during part of the damage inspection.

Endeavour, which last flew in 2002, is making the second of four shuttle flights planned this year as NASA pushes to finish the space station before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.

Reuters AK DB0918

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