NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has announced that NASA is proceeding toward a launch of the next Space Shuttle mission, STS-121 on Saturday, July 1, even with the objections of the agency's chief engineer and safety office. The concerns center around the potential for debris falling from 'ice-frost ramps' on the Shuttle's External Tank which could damage the Orbiter. The rationale for the decision is explained in this somewhat lengthy SpaceflightNow.com article.
Griffin does base his decision on, among other things, the eventual redesign to the ice-frost ramps to mitigate the risk and the crew's ability to use the space station as a 'safe haven' in the event of damage to the Orbiter on ascent.
"So how do I justify that? With as much uncertainty as we have, I ... certainly would have to think harder about putting a crew on this vehicle if I thought they didn't have the space station safe haven option and the launch-on-need (rescue flight) option and for that matter, if push came to shove, to call up Russian Soyuz spacecraft for rescue. I do not see the situation we're in as being a crew-loss situation."
Just personally reading into this statement, but the status of the Hubble servicing mission, which will not have the space station 'safe haven' available, may depend on implementation of the eventual redesign.
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