Foam grounds shuttle; NASA researching future options for foam insulation on shuttle.(US newslines)(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

Urethanes Technology, October, 2005 by White, Liz

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA -- The US space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has grounded its fleet of space shuttles, following problems with foam debris during the 26 July launch of its 'return to flight' Discovery mission.

NASA is now considering its options for foam insulation on the space shuttle external fuel tank.

Despite some damage to two of its heat-shield tiles during the launch, Discovery completed its mission and landed safely on 9 Aug in California.

And although some five pieces of the external tank's polyurethane insulation foam fell off the during launch, and one of the smaller pieces struck the shuttle wing, NASA has said these were not the cause of the tile damage.

A 60-85-cm piece of...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.