Wikinews

Unidentified object contributes to delay of shuttle landing

There are no reviewed versions of this page, so it may not have been checked for adherence to standards.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Recent stories
Related News
About Atlantis

Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis is one of the fleet of space shuttles belonging to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was the fourth operational shuttle built. Following the destruction of Columbia, it is one of the three fully operational shuttles remaining in the fleet. The other two are Discovery and Endeavour. After it completes STS-125, the final Hubble Space Telescope service mission, Atlantis is scheduled to be the first shuttle retired from the fleet.

Other NASA Space Shuttles
Related Wikipedia articles

For more info on U.S. and other human spaceflight initiatives, please explore the links below.

Flight controllers in Houston, Texas, U.S.A observed an unidentified object at approximately 7:45 UTC today moving at an undetermined distance from the Space Shuttle Atlantis as it orbited the Earth at an altitude of over 190 nautical miles. As of 16:00 UTC, there was still uncertainty as to the object's size and distance from the orbiter. Video of the object showed it following an undeviating path between the shuttle and the Earth below.

NASA released the following statement on its official website: "An object was observed by flight controllers using a TV camera on the shuttle in close proximity to the spacecraft. It was observed following standard tests of Atlantis' reaction control system about 2:45 a.m. today. Flight controllers continue to analyze the situation and are concerned the item may be something that came off of Atlantis."

The shuttle had been scheduled to land at 15:45 UTC on Wednesday, but concerns raised by the object, in addition to an unfavorable weather forecast, prompted Mission Control Center to "wave off" the landing until 11:32 UTC Thursday at the earliest.

ABC News is reporting that flight controllers first saw the object shortly after sensors in the shuttle's wings indicated the craft had been "hit by something", but the Associated Press reports that NASA officials believe the sensor reading was triggered by the spacecraft itself as it fired positional jets. As of 18:00 UTC the leading theory at NASA is that something escaped from the shuttle's cargo bay during that jet firing sequence. Cameras will be focused on the object throughout the night and a detailed inventory of cargo bay items will be taken in an effort to learn whether a safe landing can be made without the object, if it in fact belonged to the shuttle.


Sources

edit
 

Share this:           


  This page has been automatically archived by a robot, and is no longer publicly editable.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that the listed sources may no longer be available online.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Unidentified_object_contributes_to_delay_of_shuttle_landing"