Engineers are moving ahead with a plan to retrieve a main separation bolt nut from inside the aft section of space shuttle Discovery and finish attaching the shuttle to its external fuel tank by Saturday.
The nut slipped into the aft compartment Friday morning as technicians were attaching the left-side main separation bolt on the bottom of the shuttle to the external tank in NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida. The right-side bolt already had been attached. Initial inspections have seen no indications of damage from the incident.
Engineers spent Friday afternoon thoroughly evaluating the situation and developing the plan to fix the problem. Technicians will put up several platforms and use them to enter Discovery’s aft compartment through an access door. They’ll then move the nut back into position and finish attaching the bold, which is used to separate Discovery from the external tank once the shuttle is in orbit.
Barring any further complications, Discovery should be fully attached to its external tank and two solid rocket boosters Saturday, which would keep it on track to be rolled out to Launch Pad 39A as scheduled on Sept. 20. Discovery and its six astronaut crew are targeted to launch on the STS-133 mission with supplies and a new module for the International Space Station on Nov. 1.