NASA May Waive Shuttle Launch Safety Rule

NASA has announced it may waive one of its flight safety rules in order to finally launch space shuttle Discovery on its Return to Flight Mission today. Flight safety engineers may relax a rule requiring that all four hydrogen fuel sensing gauges be operating normally in order to allow the launch to proceed. A malfunction of a single fuel gauge caused NASA to postpone Discovery's first launch attempt on July 13.

As reported here by Reuters, NASA officials feel safe in relaxing the fuel gauge rule because, "it feels there are sufficient safeguards and they are confident the shuttle's safety would not be endangered even if one sensor malfunctioned."

Discovery's vehicle manager Stephanie Stilson was not so quick to downplay the significance of the possible safety rule waiver. Quted in the Reuters story, Stilson stated, "Any time you talk about changing a launch (rule), that is a big deal. It's huge. That is not something we would go into lightly, as we should not."

The launch of Discovery is scheduled for Tuesday morning at 10:30 EDT and would be the first shuttle mission launched since the 2003 Columbia accident. Columbia disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, as it flew over Texas toward a landing strip in Florida.

Along with testing safety upgrades made to the shuttle since the Columbia disaster, Discovery's mission includes a rendezvous with the International Space Station. Read the entire Reuters story...

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Tags: space shuttle discovery