Local Astronaut Has Experienced Foam Damage
COLORADO SPRINGS – Former NASA Astronaut and Colorado Springs resident Jeff Ashby has commanded three space flights. He flew Columbia in 1999, Endeavour in 2001 and Atlantis in 2002. On each those flights, his shuttle experienced foam damage.
“This orange tank is liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen covered in foam, it’s like a big thermos,” says Ashby while referencing a model of a space shuttle ready for lift-off.
Just like on his flights, a piece of foam fell off the tank and damaged the belly of the current Endeavour flight.
“A piece of foam was liberated somewhere (near the top of the tank) came down, struck a bracket, fell and impacted the shuttle down in this area on the wing,” says Ashby.
NASA engineers are now working on Earth to keep the shuttle safe in space.
“NASA has developed a model of this area using real heat tiles, gouged out exactly like the gouge on the space craft on orbit,” says Ashby.
The gouge on Endeavour is approximately three inches wide and more than one inch deep. That hole and re-entry conditions are being recreated in a NASA lab.
“It’s called an Arc Jet test, much like a blow torch on the tiles,” says Ashby.
There are a few options available to the astronauts should NASA decide to fix the damage.
“One is to paint some more black stuff over it, another is to fill the gouge with some epoxy like material,” says Ashby.
Either option requires a dangerous space walk using a robotic arm to hold the astronaut.
“There are no hand holds or foot holds or anywhere to hang on,” says Ashby. “We have to have a tremendous amount of trust in many, many people to get on this vehicle, because we can’t know everything.”
Ashby says even if the damage isn’t repaired, it leaves some unknown answers.
“If that area is not perfectly smooth, it could cause some additional heating downstream during re-entry,” says Ashby. “These are things that we’re not completely certain of because we’ve never done this.”
Ashby says NASA continues to develop the launch tank 25 years after it’s first use. However, he says concerns over falling foam may not matter soon. Ashby tells NEWSCHANNEL 13 that the last space shuttle flight will be in 2010. After that, a new vehicle will be ready to launch in 2014. He says that new vehicle should take astronauts to the moon and possibly Mars.
