NASA sets shuttle launch date despite missing some safety goals

Despite some unmet safety goals, NASA has set July 13 as the launch date for its first space shuttle flight since the February 2003 Columbia disaster.

As expected, agency leaders confirmed the date Thursday at the conclusion of a two-day technical review involving more than 100 shuttle officials at the launch site in Florida. There, Discovery is undergoing final preparations for a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said engineers worked hard in the past two-and-a-half years to reduce the risk of a shuttle accident, but found it impossible to comply with three of 15 safety requirements resulting from a probe of Columbia's fatal breakup.

"We are being as smart about this as we know how to be, but we're up against the limits of our human knowledge," Griffin told reporters.

The spaceship burned up in Earth's atmosphere after its left wing was punctured by a piece of insulating foam that popped off its external fuel tank during launch.

Accident investigators specified numerous safety improvements that ranged from redesigning parts of the shuttle to getting better pictures of the rocket in flight.

The three goals NASA did not achieve were those a task force overseeing the safety improvements rated as most difficult. The goals were to eliminate all debris-shedding risks, harden the orbiter against debris hits and give astronauts a reliable way to repair hits in-flight.

The task force, chaired by two veteran astronauts, reported Monday that it did not regard the lack of compliance as a constraint to flight.

Griffin and other NASA executives conferred Thursday with the seven astronauts who will fly aboard Discovery. "They're really ready to go and think that we have met the [safety] burden," said William Readdy, NASA associate administrator for space operations.

Griffin's top priority since his April 14 appointment has been the accident recovery. Putting Discovery's launch behind him will give the administrator more opportunity to address several other short-term goals:

• Finishing construction of the International Space Station and retiring the space shuttle by 2010.
• Speeding development of a shuttle replacement to ensure U.S. access to space and return Americans to the moon by 2020.
• Persuading Congress to amend the 2000 Iran Nonproliferation Act so NASA can continue to buy Russian rescue vehicles and cargo transport for the space station after April 2006.
• Focusing aeronautics programs on demonstrations of ground-breaking technology without large budget increases.
• Cleaning up NASA's financial problems.

Griffin said he has assigned extra people and budget resources to tackle the problem, sought advice from financial managers in other federal agencies, and "empowered the CFO" to act to improve NASA's long-term financial health.