NASA weighs repair of shuttle's protective shield

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — NASA engineers on Monday pored over new imagery of the space shuttle Endeavour's underbelly to decide if its damaged heat shield needed repair, as astronauts prepared for the mission's second spacewalk.

The three-dimensional images of a gouge in the shield were taken Sunday by a camera, and measured by a laser, both of which were trained on the shuttle's protective surface.

The examination took about three hours as the imaging devices atop a 30-meter-long (100 foot) robotic arm coupled with the Orbiter Boom Sensory System (OBSS) scanned five areas on the shuttle underside that may have been damaged during Wednesday's launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The gouge, 30.5 x 25.5...