NASA says damage to Foam on space shuttle is minimal

Endeavor Orbiter Receives Minor Foam Debris Damage

Cape Canveral, Floria (AP). A boom-mounted robotic arm sensor and photographs were confirmed that six inch strips of insulating foam on the Endeavor's fuel tank fell off near where the wing joins the fuselage. Shuttle program manager John Shannon says that 6 in strips of foam peeled away as the shuttle blasted into orbit on Wednesday July 9th.

Foam fell off the Endeavor space shuttle after liftoff. Small dents in several different areas were confirmed by inspecting photos of the Endeavor orbiter. Although no serious damage was done, NASA is concerned about preventing events like this from reoccurring.

NASA Concerned With Prevention (This is a Recurrence)

The arm and robotic sensor have been used ever since the Columbia disaster in 2003. The foam debris made some minor dents in the thermal tiles which were luckily not serious -- due to the fact that this did not occur during the first two minutes after lift-off. Space station astronauts confirmed the damage was minor to the endeavor as they inspected the shuttle from the international space station before the linkup. Nasa's greatest concern now is to prevent this type of event from reoccurring. The reason is, the same thing happened on NASA's last launch. Hopefully they can pinpoint the cause and preemptively prevent a potentially dangerous future accident.

Note

We included the article here because it is well known that NASA uses polyurethane foam to insulate the space shuttle--because this is the highest quality insulation out there. A very similar composition is used on polyurethane foam roofing projects, including both residential and commercial. Eichlers are some of the most popular candidates for polyurethane foam roofing because they have little or no space inside for insulation, so the insulation polyurethane foam can provide on the roof-top is ideal.