CTV.ca News Staff
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
CTV
A Canadian company will play a critical role in helping the next space shuttle get back to Earth safely.
As NASA prepares for a July takeoff, Ottawa's Neptec is set to inspect the shuttle Discovery for damage while in space.
The Discovery launch will be the first since the Columbia disaster in January 2003. During that shuttle's liftoff, Columbia was damaged when a piece of insulation foam struck its left wing.
The wing damage was thought to be minor, but as Columbia was descending for landing, superheated air burned into the wing and broke apart the shuttle, killing the seven crew members.
This time, when Discovery lifts off, it will have new safety regulations in place and a system developed by Neptec to inspect for damage to the craft.
"They have to inspect the outside of the space shuttle to make sure there is no damage before it comes home the next time so this has to be done in orbit," says Neptec research and development director Iain Christie.
Neptec, which develops 3-D imaging systems, has created a special laser camera system just for this mission. The laser system will analyze the shuttle and detect damage in the total darkness of space.
"On the leading edges of the wings is something called reinforced carbon. These are black on the outside, black on the inside and behind them is black, so using a camera doesn't help much because there is no contrast," explains Christie.
The laser will be deployed on a special Canadarm extension — a boom manufactured by another Canadian company, MD Robotics that will help to scan even the most hard-to-reach corners of the spacecraft.
Neptec's laser system will gather data in the pitch black and quickly provide 3-dimensional models so that inconsistencies, like tiny cracks as thin as a business card, can be noticed.
"Two business cards together are about 1/20,000th of an inch wide. NASA's own analysis said that if the damage is this big that could be enough to be catastrophic," says Christie.
If the Neptec laser spots damage, NASA astronauts may try to repair it in space using a collection of patches that they'll bring along in a repair kit.
Or, as Christie puts it, they can attempt a "lifeboat style drop-off."
"Their other option is to drop the shuttle crew off at the space station and send another shuttle to get them."
It's an extreme and untested backup plan and hopefully one that will never have to be used.
Discovery is scheduled to be launched between July 13 and July 30.
From a report by CJOH's Colin Tretheway