Crew Expresses Confidence That Discovery Is Safe

HOUSTON â€”  In their first interview from space, astronauts aboard the shuttle Discovery said Friday that they were disappointed to learn that large pieces of insulating foam fell off the orbiter’s external tank during Tuesday’s launch, but that they remained confident that the orbiter was safe enough to fly them home in another week.

“All of us on the crew were very surprised� about the foam loss “after so many good people have worked so hard� to solve the problem, mission specialist Andrew Thomas said.

“It wasn’t what we expected,� Discovery commander Eileen Collins said.

That didn’t shake her faith in the shuttle. “We know Discovery is going to get us back to Earth safe,� she said.

On Earth, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said Friday that he would push for a quick solution to the foam problem.

Although NASA has halted future shuttle flights until managers can guarantee that no more large pieces of foam will slough off, Griffin refused to abandon the possibility of resuming flights this year.

There are two potential windows for further flights this year. One begins Sept. 9; the other is in November.

“We are going to fix it, and fix it in short order,� he said. “We don’t expect this to be a long, drawn-out affair.�

Engineers also grappled Friday with another problem that has surfaced: two protruding gap fillers between heat-resistant tiles on the underside of the orbiter. Each gap filler, which performs the same type of function as caulking between bathroom tiles, is sticking out about 1.2 inches.

The problem is that even tiny variations in the surface features of a craft traveling thousands of miles an hour can increase the heating on heat-resistant tiles by several hundred degrees.

NASA managers said they were considering, but had not yet decided, to send a space-walking astronaut out to cut or shave the gap fillers.

One problem that seriously concerned NASA earlier in the week, a chipped insulating tile near the landing gear door, seemed to recede in importance Friday when engineers figured out that the damage was only a third of an inch deep. Tiles in that area are almost two inches thick.

“I’m feeling very confident this is not going to be something to worry about,� said N. Wayne Hale Jr., deputy shuttle program manager.

While engineers studied foam trajectories and tile damage, Discovery’s seven-person crew continued methodically going about their jobs in the orbiter, which is now docked with the International Space Station.

On Friday, they moved a logistics module into place and began transferring tons of supplies to the station. After the module is emptied, it will be refilled with 17 tons of trash and returned to Discovery for the flight home.

They also finalized preparations for today’s space walk by astronauts Stephen Robinson and Soichi Noguchi, the first of three scheduled. It will be used to test two techniques to repair damage to the heat-resistant tiles and reinforced carbon panels that protect the leading edges of the wings and the nose cone.

On later walks, Noguchi and Robinson will replace a failed gyroscope on the space station and rewire another one that lost power.

The glitches aside, astronauts said they were excited to be back in space.

“This is something I’ve trained to do for four years,� Collins said in an interview broadcast on NASA TV.

Griffin praised the performance of the shuttle crew as “better than perfect.�

He singled out Collins’ flying skills when she performed a first-ever backward flip of the shuttle during docking with the space station so that the crew could photograph the underside of the orbiter.

While feeling confident that Discovery was not seriously damaged during launch, NASA officials said they would know for certain by Sunday whether Discovery was safe to fly home.

That decision will come after reviewing the pictures, sensor data from the wings and laser images taken with the boom sensor Friday.

The temporary halt in future flights prompted a request that the crew’s 13-day mission be extended one day to allow further transfers of equipment and supplies to the space station so it can prepare for a protracted delay in the resumption of shuttle flights.

The shuttle is the only space vehicle in the world that can carry large amounts of stores and construction materials to finish the half-built space station.

Hale said it was likely that the request would be granted.