Discovery issue

Crew describes object floating away and bump on rudder
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:22:18 AM EDT

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. 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.

how can they still land tommorow? that could have been a piece of the shuttle?

image here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/

This does not look good, oh no, not good at all. Any aero-space engineers in the house? How will "just a bump" on the tail rudder affect over all attitude of the shuttle during re-entry and high speed deacceleratiion maneuvers? I am really hoping that debris spotted floating away is not part of the rudder. Good luck and godspeed Nasa. We are looking forward to celebrating Fathersday with STS 124 safely on the ground! [link]

floating debris is one of three clips to aid in acsent and not used in decsent whatsoever. Clip became seperated after engine test. Sholudn't be an issue for landing and clip is an item often found to be missing in past returns. This is a non-issue. I hope not! [link]

NASA say neither are a concern although the speed brake is going to get hot and I do not know what that means. The trailing edge will not come into play until the nose fist final glide begins. The initial re-entry phase will create an envelope around the trailing edge as the heatshield and the leading edges soak up the friction. Fingers crossed it should be OK.

ignore this post i am testing posting pictures

i dont understand it works in one post and not the other, what the hell!! damn my whole topic was ruined I hate the code in this forum