Shuttle’s back flip will help NASA check its condition

He flew combat missions in the Persian Gulf War and classified assignments as a test pilot.

Today, astronaut Rick Sturckow will guide the shuttle Atlantis through a maneuver that’s been done only four times.

Pausing about 600 feet from the International Space Station, the Marine colonel is to put Atlantis in a slow-motion back flip that will take nine minutes. At the same time, astronauts aboard the space station will snap more than 300 digital photos of the ship’s underbelly.

The images will help NASA check that Atlantis’ heat-protective exterior is in good shape for the ship’s eventual return through the atmosphere. The backward somersault has become standard since the 2003 Columbia accident.

After the maneuver, Sturckow is to dock Atlantis at the station about 12:30 p.m. PDT.

The shuttle launched Friday from Kennedy Space Center, and NASA managers are optimistic about its condition despite photos showing a 4-inch gap in an exterior insulating blanket.

“It looks very, very clean,” said John Shannon, chairman of the team that is overseeing Atlantis’ flight from Johnson Space Center in Houston. But he said further analysis was needed of the insulating blanket, which came loose on the left side of Atlantis.

Blankets have come loose in similar or worse fashion on previous flights, Shannon said, and those shuttles returned without damage. Nonetheless, he said, engineers will conduct a detailed analysis to determine whether it poses a danger. “There’s not a great deal of concern over it right now,” Shannon said.

In addition to the blanket, he said, further study is needed of a 6-inch chunk of foam that came off an oxygen line on the external fuel tank during the launch. NASA detected the missing piece in imagery collected as the tank was jettisoned in orbit.

It’s not clear when the piece came off, or whether it hit the shuttle. Shannon said NASA hopes to learn more from video taken by cameras on Atlantis’ solid rocket boosters.

That footage will be not be available until Monday, after the boosters have been retrieved from the ocean and returned to Florida.