![]() ![]() The orbiter autopsies can determine whether the best estimates and educated guesses NASA engineers relied on to keep the shuttle flying for three decades were trustworthy. Now we can actually tear some of this hardware down.” “We have been evaluating this hardware with nondestructive tests throughout their history. Seriale-Grush, orbiter chief engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. “ ‘Autopsy’ is a sad way of putting it-these vehicles are almost like our friends-but it’s what we are doing,” says Joyce M. They removed and analyzed propellant tanks and valves and scrutinized electronics, looking for evidence of deterioration the way coroners look for signs of illness during autopsies. In late autumn of last year, more than six months after Discovery landed for the final time, NASA crews began peeling back the orbiter’s skin, clipping wires, and pulling hydraulics. And this harvesting of the orbiter’s components was only the beginning. ![]() Clear plastic stretched across the crater in the orbiter’s nose, where the forward reaction control system-small thrusters that maneuvered the spacecraft in orbit-had been removed. The three main engines had been removed from the shuttle’s aft end, which was now covered by a tightly fitted mask with three white discs the size of the engine bells. Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia, where it will arrive in mid-April. No need to worry about contamination: Discovery would not be returning to space.Īfter flying 148 million miles and orbiting Earth 5,830 times, Discovery, first flown in August 1984, was being decommissioned and readied for its trip to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. “Bunnysuits,” those white coveralls with floppy hoods and rubber-banded booties, were designed to keep dirt and debris from contaminating the orbiter interiors.īut on this summer day in one Orbiter Processing Facility, technicians working inside Discovery’s crew module wore street clothes. Technicians had worn them for decades as they prepared the space shuttles for their move from Kennedy Space Center’s three Orbiter Processing Facilities to the towering Vehicle Assembly Building, and eventually the launch pad. ![]()
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