Crew inspects space shuttle Endeavour for damage

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Shuttle Endeavour astronauts surveyed their spaceship's heat shield on Thursday for any damage sustained during launch, while NASA reviewed video showing debris impacts on the orbiter, officials said.

The shuttle and seven astronauts blasted off Wednesday to deliver the last segment of Japan's Kibo research laboratory to the International Space Station. The shuttle is scheduled to reach the outpost for an 11-day stay on Friday.

Endeavour is also carrying supplies, spare parts and a new station crewmember, U.S. astronaut Timothy Kopra, who will replace Japan's Koichi Wakata as one of the live-aboard flight engineers.

Video and images taken during Endeavour's 8.5-minute ride into orbit showed several pieces of foam and/or ice breaking off the shuttle's external fuel tank and striking Endeavour's heat shield. Program managers said they believe white streaks seen on some of the shuttle's heat-resistant black belly tiles are nothing more than a coating loss and likely would not be an issue for the return trip back to Earth.

The heat shield protects the shuttle during its fiery, supersonic descent through the atmosphere prior to landing, a friction-filled flight that can generate temperatures as high as about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit -- about one-third as hot as the surface of the sun.

Shuttle Columbia broke apart during its re-entry into the atmosphere on February 1, 2003, due to a hole in one of its wing panels caused by a debris impact during launch. All seven crewmembers aboard died.

'WAIT AND SEE'

NASA implemented a series of in-flight inspections after the accident to make sure future shuttle crews survive re-entry.

Foam, which insulates the shuttle's fuel tank, is commonly shed during launches, though the amount of debris was sharply curtailed by tank redesigns after the accident.

NASA managers said Wednesday some of the debris thought to have been spotted during Endeavour's liftoff may have stemmed from optical illusions or reflections of light. The shuttle blasted off at 6:03 p.m. EDT (2203 GMT) under direct sunlight.

Before the crew went to sleep Wednesday night, Mission Control told the astronauts that Endeavour appeared to sustain fewer debris strikes than the previous shuttle mission in May.

On Thursday, the crew used Endeavour's robot arm to scan the ship's wings and nose cap with a sophisticated imaging system mounted on the end of a 50-foot (15-meter) boom. The pictures will be analyzed by engineers on the ground over the next several days.

Another key inspection is scheduled for Friday before the shuttle docks at the space station. Commander Mark Polansky will backflip Endeavour so astronauts aboard the station can photograph its belly tiles. Those images also will be relayed to the ground for analysis.

"The bottom line is, we saw some stuff, some of it doesn't concern us, some of it you really just can't speculate on right now," said Mike Moses, the shuttle program manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "We've just got to wait and see what happens."

(Editing by Tom Brown)