By Howaida Sorour,
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, July 01, 2006
A Kanata company is part of the U.S. space agency's efforts to quell safety concerns about the latest mission of the space shuttle Discovery, which is due to be launched this afternoon from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Neptec Design Group, which specializes in visual systems, has been developing a 3D sensor system that was tested on the last shuttle mission to inspect possible damage to the shuttle's ceramic heat shield.
"This is the second time the system has flown, but this time we know a lot more than we did before," said Iain Christie, director of business development at Neptec. "We've modified it extensively in terms of operational range, changing the sweet spot to meet NASA requirement, and there was new software they wanted among other things."
The shuttle Columbia disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, on its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after some of its heat-protecting tiles had been damaged during liftoff. Seven astronauts were killed in the accident, which grounded the shuttle fleet for more than two years until Discovery returned to space on July 26, 2005.
Some minor damage to the heat shield is inevitable during any spaceflight, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel. The key issue is how much damage and where it is located on the shuttle.
"The Neptec system is an integral part of our inspection process to make sure the heat shield is safe to come back to Earth with," he said.
The Neptec sensor is mounted on the Canadarm that can move around the exterior of the spacecraft allowing the sensor to examine the shuttle in minute detail and relay the information back to Earth.
"It can reconstruct the object on to a computer screen," said Erick Dupuis, manager of robotics at the Canadian Space Agency, which helped Neptec develop the sensor.
The sensor relays the visual information it "sees" as precise measurements that enable a graphics program to reconstruct the image. That, in turn, allows both the crew of the shuttle and the engineers on the ground to analyse exactly what's happening on the exterior of the spacecraft.
For this mission, NASA has set two inspections for the shuttle.
"This time the shuttle will be inspected once at the beginning of its flight to verify that there hasn't been any damage during launch, and they've added another inspection late in the mission just prior to re-entry," said Mr. Buetel. "The sensor helps us decide how severe the damage is and our response would be predicated on how much damage there was."
The shuttle's crew has the ability to make rudimentary repairs if necessary, he said, but if extensive damage is detected, NASA has a different plan.
"There is the last resort of staying on the International Space Station," said Mr. Beutel, adding that it is neither expected not desirable.
"The last thing that we want is an exciting flight," said Mr. Christie.