With tonight's status update briefing, it has been announced that the 3rd EVA by Discovery's astronauts will include a task to remove some protruding gap filler. It was noted that the gap filler is protruding in 2 places on the belly of the shuttle: in one place it protrudes about 0.9 inches, while in the other it protrudes about 1.1 inches. It is feared that these protrusions may disrupt the airflow around the orbiter during re-entry, which may cause increased heating on some of the protective tiles. It should be noted that NASA officials do not think that this protrusion was caused or is in any way related to the falling foam from the external fuel tank. Rather, they believe that this gap filler was "shaken" loose by the high vibrations on launch. This will be the first time that a repair of this nature has been attempted.
The full story at the BBC may be found here.
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