Discovery Back In Orbit

I Lost Count In All The Excitement
Here's the space shuttle Discovery back in orbit. NASA is breaking out into a round of back-slapping:

The space shuttle Discovery made an apparently flawless launch from Cape Canaveral yesterday, ending months of frustration for the crew and marking what Nasa hopes will be the start of a safer era of space exploration.
The liftoff at 10.39am local time from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida came two and a half years after the Columbia disaster that killed seven astronauts, and followed technical delays that led some experts to wonder if America would ever get back into space.

"Of those of us who have flown before, that was by far the smoothest ascent we've known," said Discovery's commander, Eileen Collins, adding that she and the crew were "feeling great" after their 62-mile journey to reach space.
The launch ended the most painful period of reflection and rebuilding in the space agency's history. But managers said they would only be satisfied when Discovery returned safely to Earth on August 7.

"Our long wait may be over. So on behalf of the many millions of people who believe so deeply in what we do, good luck, Godspeed, and have a little fun up there," launch director, Mike Leinbach, told the astronauts in the final seconds before liftoff.

NASA administrator Mike Griffin said: "Take note of what you saw here today, not only the power and majesty of launch but the sheer gall, grit and pluck of the team who pulled this programme out of the depths of despair two and a half years ago and made it fly."

Now that they're out there, it's a different story as the crew check for damage:

HOUSTON, July 27 -- The crew of space shuttle Discovery Wednesday spent its first working day in space conducting a meticulous survey of the shuttle's heat shielding for signs of damage, while analysts on the ground tried to determine whether there had been any debris impacts during launch that harmed the orbiter.

The survey marked the debut of the shuttle's 50-foot, Canadian-built sensing boom, whose television camera and laser-imaging devices produced unprecedented close-ups and spectacular views of Discovery in space -- almost as if the shuttle were being filmed from a second spacecraft.

The goal, however, was anything but Hollywood. For at least one more day, and quite possibly beyond, Mission Commander Eileen Collins and the rest of Discovery's seven-member crew will focus on looking for launch damage -- a legacy imposed by space shuttle Columbia's disintegration 2 ½ years ago.

After its manned spacecraft was grounded in response to the Columbia tragedy, NASA spent most of the hiatus working on shuttle safety hardware and procedures. Discovery's mission, the first since Columbia, is a trial of the changes.

"If there's something going on with the vehicle, we like to tell" the crew, said lead Flight Director Paul Hill during a news conference at the Johnson Space Center here, the home of the shuttle's Mission Control. "Has our threshold for damage changed since Columbia? You bet it has."

NASA is claiming the debirs we saw yesterday were the foam insulation falling off. That's if you believe them saying it doesn't matter either because it didn't hit the spacecraft.

Space agency officials also said that a chipped thermal tile on Discovery's belly does not appear to be a danger, and it cautioned the public against overreacting to every speck of damage sustained by the shuttle during liftoff.

NASA expected some debris to fall off during launch. The big question is whether any of it will mean a risk to the crew. The answer is still a few days away, NASA said one day after the ship blasted off on the first shuttle mission since the Columbia tragedy 2 1/2 years ago.

Flight director Paul Hill said it is understandable that people inside and outside the space agency might be alarmed by any hint of damage to Discovery's thermal shielding.

"The last flight ended in catastrophe and we lost seven friends of ours because of damage," Hill said at a news conference. But he added: "We don't make decisions in spaceflight based on that type of emotion. We make decisions in spaceflight based on the data, and we're looking at the data."

And based on what they have seen so far, NASA engineers believe the broken tile is "not going to be an issue," Hill said.

The pictures you see are from the extended boom arm having a look at the craft. It's part of the new mission procedure. Here's hoping the astronauts return safely.