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Astronauts on the expanse shuttle Endeavour module verify another look at their spacecraft's modify armour this weekend to inspect a damaged tile on the orbiter's alive modify shield, NASA managers said weekday (May 20).

Endeavour's gathering module spend most digit hours on Sat inspecting a peal in the black heat-resistant tiles covering the shuttle's underbelly, said LeRoy Cain, chair of Endeavour's assignment managiement team, in a briefing. The survey, famous as a focused inspection, should provide engineers on Earth the accumulation they need to country Endeavour's modify armour of whatever remaining concerns for its eventual construction on June 1.

The peal is digit of seven alteration sites patterned in picture surveys of Endeavour's modify armour mass the shuttle's test start on weekday (May 16). It is most 3.2 inches (8.1 centimeters) daylong and 2.5 inches  (6.4 cm), and settled slightly aftermost of the Endeavour's side right-side construction gear door.  [Photos of Space Endeavour's Final Launch]

Cain said engineers have already unwooded the rest of Endeavour's modify armour of whatever concerns, including the sextet another tile alteration sites and modify armour panels along the orbiter's wings and nose cap. They are overconfident this follow-up scrutiny module country the remaining ding, too, he added.

"There's null alarming here, and we're rattling not concerned," man said.

NASA has kept a alert eye on shuttle modify armour alteration since 2003, when wing alteration caused by falling fuel cell detachment during start led to the expiration of the shuttle river during its convey to Earth. Seven astronauts were killed.

Since then, every shuttle assignment has included meticulous modify armour surveys meet after start and meet before landing, with whatever player instance regular in for a focused scrutiny in housing digit is needed.  [Most Memorable Shuttle Missions]

For Saturday's survey, Endeavour airman Pope H. Box module curb the shuttle's robotic arm to position a 50-foot (15-meter) scrutiny pole tipped with a camera laser device meet beneath the alteration site. A digital camera module snap threesome close-up images while the laser helper records accumulation that module support analysts build a three-dimensional map of the damage.

"This is digit that we see pretty overconfident that we're feat to be able to country erst we get whatever additional data," man said. An respond could be ready within 24 hours of the survey, he added.

Endeavour's six-astronaut gathering is currently in the midst of a 16-day assignment to the International Space Station to have a field astrophysics research along with another supplies and equipment.

The astronauts were thinking to verify whatever instance soured New weekday (actually the crew's "morning" due to a skewed overnight schedule) to rest up from the laboring mission.  The astronauts are also expecting a phone call from Pope monastic XVI in the Vatican primeval Sat farewell to evaluation the fact that digit Italian astronauts — station crewmember Paolo Nespoli and shuttle traveler Roberto Vittori — are in expanse at the aforementioned time.

Those events should not be strained by Endeavour's player modify armour inspection, man said.

"We're not losing whatever activities by doing this," he added.

Endeavour's current assignment is NASA's 134th shuttle grace and the second-to-last grace before the 30-year-old information ends after this year. After Endeavour lands, NASA module control digit test assignment on the shuttle Atlantis before movement downbound the program. That grace is currently slated to lift soured July 8.

You crapper study SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the stylish in expanse science and expedition news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

• Photos of Space Shuttle Endeavour's Final Launch
• Endeavour's Lift-0ff into History
• Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records

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