Tuesday, August 21, 2007

STS-118 returns to KSC safely

Well, it's good that we decided to not repair the tile gouge in the lower surface because the post re-renty photo does not look bad at all! No further damage seems to have been caused during re-entry. I'm glad the crew and vehicle made it home to KSC safely and I am proud to be working with such a devoted and experienced team.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ms. Sarria, what is the linear feature that is revealed by the chip of missing ceramic? Do you see the thing I mean, inside the hole? It's about an inch long, and parallel to the lower edge of -153 ET 4900.

Damaris Sarria Toepel said...

What you see down into the cavity is red fillerbar. Fillerbar is like a thin padded strip bonded to the Orbiter structure, along the perimeter of each tile as a "filler" in between the tile gaps to prevent heat flow onto the structure. It is bonded to the structure with a red RTV adhesive. I hope that answered your questioned. :)

Anonymous said...

Absolutely; thank you for the information, and for this wonderful inside look at the Shuttle program.