Miami Herald June 25, 2002
Bad fuel lines ground shuttle fleet indefinitely
BY MARTIN MERZER
The entire space shuttle fleet was grounded indefinitely Monday after NASA engineers discovered small cracks in fuel lines serving the main engines of at least two of the four space ships.
Inspectors found the cracks in Atlantis and Discovery. They have not yet inspected Endeavour, which landed Wednesday after a 14-day mission, or Columbia, which was being prepared for a July 19 flight that is now postponed.
''Quite honestly, we don't understand the problem yet and we are not going to launch until we do,'' said James Hartsfield, a NASA spokesman at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. ``This has the potential to be a safety concern.''
He said technicians at the Kennedy Space Center would remove and inspect Columbia's engines, a process that will take at least a few weeks.
No other shuttle will be prepared for launch until the cause -- and possible consequences -- of the cracks are determined, Hartsfield said.
Each space shuttle has three main engines, and the fuel lines that serve them are critically important. Any failure of those lines could spark a disastrous, in-flight explosion.
''They are not supposed to break. It would ruin your whole day,'' said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense and space policy group that monitors NASA operations. ``There would be nothing else on TV for the rest of the week.''
Managers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said visual inspections and sophisticated sonar examinations found the cracks, each measuring one-tenth to three-tenths of an inch, in the metallic fuel lines.
Three cracks were found in Atlantis and three in Discovery, Hartsfield said.
During liftoff, the main engines are subjected to enormous physical stresses, and their components are frequently inspected by NASA engineers. No one could immediately determine when the components now in question had last been inspected.
''Due to the temperatures, pressure, vibration and chemicals they're exposed to, the engines are a potentially high-crack environment,'' Pike said. ``Basically, everything that could cause cracks in metals is present in great abundance in these engines.''
Other flaws have grounded the fleet from time to time since shuttle launches began in 1980, but this is believed to be the first reported cluster of cracked fuel lines.
The July 19 flight was supposed to carry Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, and six other astronauts on a science mission. The next flight, tentatively scheduled for August 22, was to carry six astronauts assigned to help construct the space station.
American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev moved into the space station last week and are scheduled to return to Earth aboard Endeavour in October.
NASA officials said it was too early to know if those plans were in jeopardy.
Copyright 2002 Miami Herald
