No Obvious Cause For Shuttle Foam Loss

SHUTTLE NEWS

Washington (UPI) Aug 12, 2005
After a week of formal inquiry, NASA said there would be no quick fix for the foam problem on the external fuel tank that grounded the U.S. shuttle fleet.

William H. Gerstenmaier, the head of the investigation and manager of the international space station program, said the inquiry found for no obvious cause for the five pieces of foam that popped off the external fuel tank during the July 26 launch of Discovery, the New York Times reported Friday.

NASA has suspended all shuttle flights until the problem with the foam - used to prevent ice accumulation on the superchilled tank - is solved.

The space agency has spent some $1 billion on shuttle safety improvements including redesigning the external tank to reduce foam loss in the 2 1/2 years since the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry Feb. 1, 2003.

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SHUTTLE NEWS

Shuttle Launch In September Unlikely As Engineers Ponder Falling Foam

Miami (AFP) Aug 11, 2005
NASA said Thursday it is unlikely to meet a September target for its next space shuttle flight as engineers try to figure out why foam fell off Discovery 30 months after a similar problem doomed Columbia.

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