NASA MISSION STATUS UPDATE
Friday, June 13
In conversations on NASA Television, space shuttle Discovery astronauts, completing a standard day-before-landing test of the shuttle steering jets, called Mission Control and indicated they had seen a one foot to 1.5-foot-long object floating away from the shuttle, from behind the rear portion of the right wing. They said it appeared to be a rectangular object. The crew captured a few seconds of video of the object and transmitted it to the ground.
Shortly afterwards, the crew described what they called a “bump” on the left side trailing edge of Discovery’s rudder (see photo). The crew took photographs of the rudder area with high resolution cameras and is downlinking those images to Mission Control. Discovery’s payload bay television cameras also were trained on the area and provided views of the rudder for ground experts to examine.
The crew completed the standard flight control system check out and reaction control system steering jet test, and is continuing to stow items in the cabin for Saturday’s planned landing.
The deorbit burn is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. EDT Saturday, followed by landing at 11:15 a.m.
NASA concerned as object floats past shuttle, bump detected
CBC News
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