NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The feasibility of a new tool to detect damage to the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) structures of the Shuttle was demonstrated July 12 by Discovery crewmembers Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum during their third EVA of STS-121. The astronauts used the EVA IR Camera, developed at Langley Research Center.

Image Right: Infrared image of Astronaut Piers Sellers during the third EVA, taken by the EVA IR Camera developed at Langley.

"[The EVA IR Camera] provides the Shuttle program with a tool to further inspect for damage," said Mike Gazarik, Langley infrared camera manager, during a press briefing via telephone from Johnson Space Center. Gazarik and the infrared camera team are at Johnson supporting the spacewalk. "This provides [the Shuttle program] a tool in the thermal section that allows them to look for damage. That's really why the demonstration of this system was so important."

The EVA IR Camera performed exceptionally well, successfully collecting data on the wing leading edge of the Orbiter and conducting measurements of pre-damaged samples in the Sample Box Assembly located in the cargo bay. A total of 10 infrared movies were collected during the EVA totaling over 250 megabytes of data. Images were downloaded to Langley engineers overnight for analysis and processing.

Following the spacewalk, Sellers reported, "It worked like a champ. As advertised." While collecting his first set of on-orbit IR imagery, Mike Fossum described the images as "Amazing."

Image Left: Infra-red image of the Orbitor's starboard wing, taken with the EVA IR Camera.

The EVA IR Camera was developed in order to provide the capability of detecting subsurface damage to the RCC during a mission. Thermal Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques, pioneered at Langley, had been used successfully during ground inspections of the Orbiter. DTO-851 was designed to determine how well the technique would work on-orbit, where the constraints of space flight and the thermal environment onorbit challenged the technique and required the development of space-hardened flight hardware. If successful, the EVA IR Camera would provide information regarding the extent of subsurface damage to the RCC.

+ Return to Researcher News Homepage

---

The Researcher News
Langley Research Center
Managing Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Patrick Lorentz