NASA Repairs On Discovery restart Monday

Technicians working on space shuttle Discovery's outside fuel tank in the Vehicle Assembly structure at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are off for the New Year holiday weekend, however, Monday, they will start repairs on three support beams, called stringers, that newly were detect to have small cracks on their tops. Engineers at different NASA centers continue to examine data from testing and X-ray type image scans gather during the past week of all 108 stringers on the outer of the external tank's ‪intertank section. The image scans showed four little cracks on three stringers on the opposite area of the tank from Discovery. Managers determined Thursday to have those cracks repaired in a like fashion to repairs complete on cracks on two stringers found after Discovery's Nov. 5 launch attempt.

The repair work is predictable to take two to three days. Any further work will be evaluate thoroughly during the week after extra data and analysis are reviewed. Managers also carry on to evaluate an option to perform recognized and practiced modifications on some stringers. Before breaking for the holiday, technicians reconfigured scaffolding to give access for the alteration work, should it be required. A result may be made on that work as early as Monday. The next obtainable launch date for Discovery's STS-133 mission to the International Space Station remainder Feb. 3 at the opening of a window that expand through Feb. 10.