NASA has cleared Discovery to return to Earth next week, concluding that there was no need to send the astronauts out on another spacewalk to repair a torn thermal blanket near a cockpit window.

A SPACEWALKING astronaut gently pulled two potentially dangerous strips of protruding filler from Discovery’s tile belly with his gloved hand yesterday, successfully completing an unprecedented emergency repair.

DISCOVERY astronauts are today set to perform a high-stakes task that has never before been attempted: sending a spacewalker beneath the craft to repair material sticking out from the ship’s thermal tile belly.

Discovery’s astronauts are preparing for a high-stakes task that’s never before been attempted: sending a spacewalker beneath the craft to repair filler sticking out from ship’s thermal tile belly.

DISCOVERY commander Eileen Collins said from orbit yesterday that she was surprised that a large piece of foam broke away despite years of work to prevent such shedding in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.

Space shuttle Discovery escaped damage from the potentially deadly chunk of foam that broke off from the fuel tank during lift-off, but may have been struck in the wing by a much smaller piece, Nasa says.

Nasa has grounded future shuttle flights because a big chunk of insulating foam flew off Discovery’s fuel tank during lift-off as it did with Columbia - but this time apparently missed the spacecraft.

SPACE shuttle Discovery and seven astronauts blasted off yesterday on America’s first manned space shot since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Nasa has put off its long-awaited resumption of space shuttle flight until at least next week, saying it is no closer to finding what caused a fuel gauge to fail in the first launch countdown.

Marcia Dunn, Cape Canaveral

The launch of the first space shuttle flight in two and a half years has been delayed until at least Saturday because of a fuel gauge that mistakenly read full instead of empty.

Space shuttle Discovery faces a windy and rainy forecast that could alter its trip back to Earth with the first crew of the international space station on board.