NASA looks to next US shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AFP) - NASA looked cautiously to its next mission due in October after the US shuttle Endeavour returned safely to Earth Tuesday despite damage to its underside.

"We are still pointing for October, we still have time," the space agency's launch director Mike Leinbach told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the landing.

"We'll see the time it takes to make the modification," he said, referring to changes needed after a piece of foam broke off Endeavour's external fuel tank on blast-off and struck its belly, leaving a small gash in a heat tile.

NASA officials breathed a sigh of relief at Endeavour's safe landing. The heat tile had held when Endeavour re-entered Earth's atmosphere, undergoing temperatures up to 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,730 Fahrenheit) as it jetted home.

"It looked almost like a pristine vehicle," Leinbach said.
"The tile did very well on re-entry," said NASA administrator Michael Griffin. "Almost everything about this tank is working very well," he added, but warned: "We have to move carefully."

The 13 day mission that ended with Tuesday's faultless landing saw the first teacher in space, lending an element of human warmth after a troubling few months for NASA which has been hit by a series of scandals.

"You have given a new meaning to higher education," joked astronaut Chris Ferguson, as he welcomed back the five-man, two-woman crew including astronaut Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space.

The Endeavour sailed back to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, amid blue skies, overflying Costa Rica and Cuba before touching down in Florida at 12:32 pm (1632 GMT), using a parachute to help it slow down.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had cut short the shuttle's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a day, fearing the mission control center in Houston, Texas, could be hit by Hurricane Dean, now pounding Mexico.

The US space agency decided against carrying out risky repairs to the shuttle's heat shield, calculating after three days of thermal and aerodynamic testing that it would hold up to the strains of re-entry to Earth.

Safety has been a big concern since 2003 when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry due to a damaged thermal protection system. All seven astronauts died and missions were put on hold for two and a half years.

Among the Endeavour's returning crew was Morgan, who at the start of the mission gave a 25-minute lesson in zero-gravity to Idaho school children.
Morgan, now 55, trained as understudy to fellow teacher Christa McAuliffe in the 1980s as the NASA hoped that sending a teacher into space would fire the imaginations of millions and keep up support for its shuttle program.
But McAuliffe never made it to space. The Challenger shuttle exploded shortly after take-off in 1986, killing all seven people on board.

During nine days at the station, the Endeavour crew and a US astronaut posted at the ISS, Clayton Anderson, made four spacewalks, installing a mechanical truss on the orbiting laboratory and fixing one of the gyroscopes that keeps it stable. They also delivered 2.7 tonnes of supplies.

The ISS is a key stepping stone for preparing manned missions to Mars. NASA plans at least 12 more shuttle missions to finish the 100-billion-dollar station by 2010.

Welcoming the Endeavour home, Griffin pointed to the success of the agency in assembling the space station, which is now almost 60 percent complete.
"This is one of the great accomplishments of mankind," he said.
Substantial additions are to be made to the laboratory in the next few months with new lab segments from Europe and Japan to be added.

It was NASA's second mission of the year, and came after a series of embarrassing scandals including an astronaut charged with plotting against a love rival and reports of others turning up drunk for flights.

NASA will not launch the next two shuttles planned in October and December until it has fixed the source of the foam problem, even if that means delaying the launches, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said.

"We are still focused on the next mission," said Bill Gerstenmeyer, the agency's associate director for space operations. "We are going to analyse to make the right decision to address the problem."