**Spaceship Has Added \"Repair Kit\"**

Ames researchers test patching material for space shuttle Discovery\'s
surface

San Jose Mercury News, 25 Jul 05

**author: Jessica Portner**

For space shuttle astronauts, computer crashes and broken gyroscopes
during flight have long been fixable glitches.

Now, on the Discovery flight, set to lift off as soon as this week, the
crew will \-- for the first time \-- have a sturdy repair kit handy to
plug holes in case the spacecraft\'s wings are punctured in transit.

Engineers at NASA/Ames Research Center gave the kits a rigorous workout,
using a superheated tube called an Arc Jet to see if these patches can
take the heat. Loose insulating foam that detached and pierced a hole in
space shuttle Columbia\'s left wing caused the 1 Feb 03, disaster in
which seven astronauts died. NASA experts say this could help fix a
similar problem should it happen again.

"If you have a flat tire, you have a spare," Ernie Fretter, a mechanical
engineer involved in the tests, said last week in the Arc Jet workshop.
Before, if the shuttle hit a snag, crew members would be stuck or have
to be rescued at the space station. "You can\'t stuff space suits in the
hole."

The Arc Jet team\'s engineers and computer scientists are among 100
people at Ames who will be on call to help if something goes wrong with
Discovery\'s mission. It is the first time since the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration began launching space shuttles that
Ames workers have been on deck to help during a flight, NASA officials
say.

Other Ames employees will be running supercomputer simulations of the
launch and also checking results of shuttle\'s aerodynamic behavior in
the wind tunnel to see how parts operate in flight.

Discovery\'s launch, the first return to orbit since the Columbia
disaster, has been delayed due to a fuel gauge malfunction.

Fretter said the Arc Jet engineers are thrilled to be involved.

"The other shuttle missions we watched on TV," said Fretter. "Now, from
the interns to the engineers, there is more anxiety that it works fine.
But we are ready to do what it takes."

The mending kit was developed by ATK Thiokol, an aerospace contractor
based in Brigham City, Utah. To make sure their tools can withstand heat
of re-entry, Ames engineers relied on the Arc Jet machine \-- a
15-foot-long box of "contained lightning" with enough power to
continuously heat 10,000 homes. The powerful machine has been used to
test heat shields used on many spacecraft, such as the recently deployed
Mars rovers and the old Viking probes that explored Venus. Inside, coils
of cooling hoses adjust the temperature, which can heat materials up to
3,000 degrees Fahrenheit \-- the temperature shuttles can reach as they
re-enter Earth\'s atmosphere.

Into the giant flamethrower, the engineers dangle two instruments: a
4-inch-long crack repair kit made of reinforced carbon-carbon \-- a
dense, charcoal-like material resistant to very high temperatures that
has been used on tips of ballistic missiles.

The cracked surface can be caulked by astronauts if tiny fissures
appear. The other device is a flat, circular patch seven inches in
diameter, which astronauts can use to plug a puncture in the
spacecraft\'s nose or wing. Once aloft, Discovery\'s crew is set to
conduct tests inside the cargo bay to see how well they can wield the
tools in the vacuum of space.

Frank Hui, one of the Arc Jet aerospace engineers who has been running
these experiments \-- more than 70 tests in one year \-- said his work
feels personal to him. He knows Steve Robinson, a crew member on
Discovery who used to work at Ames. Also, he was an intern at Ames
during the 1986 Challenger disaster when seven astronauts died during a
launch failure.

"It was horrendous," Hui said last week as he watched the Arc Jet\'s
orange flame blast materials to be used on a future NASA flight to Mars.
"They are our buddies up there. We want to see them home and walking on
the ground."