Shuttle damage ‘looks like nothing,’ NASA says

A safety inspection of the space shuttle Atlantis, on a mission to repair the Hubble telescope, has turned up minor damage in the area where the right wing joins the fuselage, NASA announced Tuesday.

Although that is considered a sensitive location, the damage appears to be superficial and no threat to the integrity of the shuttle, according to officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“On an initial look, it looks like nothing,” center spokesman James Hartsfield said.

The damage was described as a trail of dings about 21 inches long along the side of the orbiter, as though something bounced along the heat shield before flying off. NASA officials think the source could be bits of insulating foam, which were seen falling off the external fuel tank about two minutes into Monday’s launch.

Any damage in the wing area is worrisome, especially since the shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003 while returning to Earth with a damaged left wing.

This situation is different, however, because the damage on Atlantis is to the thick, heat resistant tiles that cover much of the shuttle. The damage on Columbia was to the leading edge of the wing itself, which is covered in a reinforced carbon coating that can be very brittle.

NASA safety officials have not decided whether to order a focused inspection of Atlantis’ damage by a special camera carried on board.

Atlantis is on an 11-day mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, most of whose instruments are inoperative. The mission has been considered riskier than most, but not because of the launch. Foam often falls off during launch.

The danger will be in the repair itself, because the crew will have no option for retreat in case the shuttle is damaged, for example by space debris.

As a precaution, the shuttle Endeavour is sitting on a launch pad next to the one Atlantis used, ready to launch a rescue in a matter of days.

If the Hubble is able to be repaired, the telescope will be more powerful than ever, enabling astronomers to view images of space so distant that they capture the very earliest epoch after the Big Bang.

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john.johnson@latimes.com