Shuttle commander confident of safe return

ON A day when her crew remembered those who died on space shuttle Columbia, Discovery Commander Eileen Collins said she’s confident about returning home safely next week.

“I wouldn’t fly this flight if I didn’t think it was a safe thing to do,” Ms Collins said.

NASA yesterday cleared lingering concerns about shuttle Discovery’s condition to return home.

“We have good news,” astronaut Julie Payette, speaking from NASA’s Mission Control, radioed to the crew. “The MMT (mission management team) just got to the conclusion that the blanket underneath the commander’s window is safe for return.”

“There is no issue. So basically, no EVA four,” she said referring to NASA’s acronym for extravehicular activity or spacewalk.

The reply from Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, who along with astronaut Steve Robinson, successfully completed three spacewalks, was subdued.

“That’s ... ahh. I would say good news,” Soichi said.

Engineers had been studying whether a piece of damaged cloth insulation beneath the commander’s left cockpit window could break off as the shuttle flew in for landing and damage a part of the shuttle critical for flight, such as the tail or a movable body flap.

The shuttle is due to depart the International Space Station tomorrow and is expected to touch down at Kennedy Space Centre on Monday.

Meanwhile, as Discovery orbited the Earth yesterday, the shuttle’s crew sent down images of the planet below and each crew member took a few minutes to discuss space exploration, its costs and remembered those who didn’t make it home.

“We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” astronaut Wendy Lawrence said. “And certainly, space exploration is not easy and there has been a human price that has been paid.”