Engineers conducting a routine check of the shuttle Discovery after Sunday’s launch postponement have found a crack in the foam insulation lining the orbiter’s external tank.
The 12cm-long, 3mm-deep breakage was spotted near a bracket close to the top of the fuel tank, Nasa confirmed.
Its not yet known what this could mean to the launch but probably puts mission STS-121 very much in jeopardy.
“We don’t know if it’s a problem or not (for the launch),” said US space agency spokesman George Diller.
“If we decide we have to do something about it, we probably cannot launch tomorrow,” Diller was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Matt
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