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HOUSTON – NASA ordered Endeavour's gathering to verify an unusual close-up countenance at a damaged tile in the expanse shuttle's ethereal modify shield primeval Saturday morning.

Using the shuttle's robotic arm, astronauts module scrutinize the defect on the shuttle's underbelly with a broad partitioning camera and a laser attached to a boom.

"There's nothing dismaying here and we're not rattling concerned," said LeRoy Cain, chair of the shuttle assignment management aggroup that definite weekday to order what's titled a "focused inspection."

Cain said the two-hour maneuver is being done discover of an quantity of warn and won't drive whatever flutter to the gathering or its 16-day assignment to the International Space Station.

The damaged tile was spotted in photos snapped by the send gathering meet before the shuttle linked up Wednesday. Initially, the photos showed heptad sites with dings or gouges, but sextet of them were boost analyzed and turned discover not to be a problem.

The one place that remains a anxiety is the size of a deck of cards, meet beneath the rear landing gear.

The positioning and size gives engineers a taste of certainty that the alteration is not the type that caused the wipeout of the expanse shuttle Columbia in 2003. They also state that kindred alteration on Endeavour in 2007 — coincidentally commanded by Scott Kelly, brother of current man Mark buffoon — turned discover not to be a problem.

Cain told reporters that it's so unlikely that the defect module be problematic that NASA hasn't even thoughtful making occurrence plans for sterilisation the tile in flight. NASA crapper bushel damaged tiles using a souped-up version of a caulking armament during a spacewalk.

The ethereal tiles are conception of an intricate modify endorsement grouping that keeps the shuttle, especially its lowermost and edges, from burning up during its hot re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. In 2003, alteration to the edges and tiles allowed likewise such modify in, destroying Columbia and ending heptad astronauts.

Since then, shuttles hit been patterned in grace for whatever ice or sparkle debris alteration from liftoff, to attain sure the shuttle is innocuous to fly home. This is exclusive the fifth instance an extra scrutiny has been necessary in 21 flights.

For Saturday's inspection, the camera module verify meet three close-up photos from 7 feet absent and the laser module intend digit sets of data. Officials expect that module be enough aggregation to block into computer models to assure them that the alteration isn't anything to be worried about.

This is Endeavour's terminal grace and the ordinal terminal of the 30-year expanse shuttle program. NASA is movement downbound the information to pore on eventual missions to a nearby asteroid or another places boost discover than Earth's orbit. Shuttle Atlantis is tentatively set to attain the terminal grace on July 8 with a alluviation of supplies and equipment for the station.

Friday turned discover to be a period of diminutive concerns for NASA, after an primeval morning turn spacewalk had to be cut a shade short because of a device difficulty on an astronaut's spacesuit.

Nearly five hours into the 6 1/2-hour spacewalk, assignment controllers detected that Catholic Chamitoff's copy whitener device wasn't working. NASA needs to know if levels of copy whitener — expelled when you expel — intend likewise high.

It's likely that wetness caused the frequence device to fail, said advance spacewalk tar Allison Bolinger.

The levels were belike not likewise high, but controllers told Chamitoff and spacewalking relation histrion Feustel not to closing installing an sensitiveness on the expanse send because it would verify likewise such time.

In the end, the spacewalk was 11 minutes shorter than planned. Feustel and Chamitoff installed a light fixture and swapped discover whatever experiments parked outside the expanse station.

This was the prototypal spacewalk for Chamitoff. He titled it "a imagine become true for me."

Endeavour's astronauts module attain four spacewalks patch cropped at the expanse station.

NASA authorised a first-of-its-kind maneuver on weekday for a picture op when a Slavonic Soyuz capsulise undocks from the expanse send with three astronauts aboard. The capsulise module back absent to most 600 feet and stop. Then the send module tardily circumvolve so the Soyuz crapper intend thin photos of the shuttle cropped to the send from assorted angles and from another spaceship.

Delivered by Endeavour and added to the expanse send on weekday was a $2 1000000000 physics experiment that looks for antimatter and Stygian matter. Saturday, the digit crews module intend an unexampled VIP call — Catholic monastic XVI module attain the prototypal Catholic call to space.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

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