NASA decided that the cracks in the thermal insulation of the Endeavour shuttle were safe for the crew

On the evening of Tuesday, August 14, the NASA official website said that, according to flight managers who studied the images of damaged areas of Endeavour shuttle, cracks in thermal insulation tiles cannot cause problems for the crew and cannot be a reason for changing or not fulfilling the flight task.

The decision was made as a result of a detailed study of the information transmitted to the Earth, including their three -dimensional images, as well as on the basis of experiments with control samples of ceramic tiles, designed to simulate the possible destruction of the damaged heat -guided coating at the entrance of the ship into the dense layers of the atmosphere.

At the same time, NASA experts are discussing a set of damage repair work, which should be performed on Earth in the Endeavour preparation process for the next start. It is assumed that as a result of the future repair, the problem can be resolved completely.

Earlier on this day, the ship's commander Scott Kelly also stated that from his point of view, the cracks are not so great as to become a threat to the crew’s security. "As I understand it, these damage cannot threaten the safety of the crew. Rather, this is a matter of the complexity of repairing the ship on Earth after landing and the possibility of its further operation," he said.

However, until making the final decision of both the crew and ground specialists prepared a plan for repairing damage in open space, ABC News reports.