Nasa Officials

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - With electrical supplies dwindling on the space shuttle Discovery, NASA officials say they are determined to bring it down safely early today despite unpredictable weather at the primary landing site in Florida. If weather prevents the shuttle from touching down at Kennedy Space Center for a second day, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is considering landing in New Mexico or at the shuttle's primary backup site in California. "We're going to land [today]

Two Discovery astronauts were set to step outside their airlock this morning to find out whether spacewalkers can repair a shuttle's critical heat shields in outer space. But the work will be strictly experimental, performed on test samples and coached as needed by the engineers back at the Goddard Space Flight Center who made some of their tools. There were no plans to attempt repairs on any of the real but apparently minor damage Discovery sustained during its ascent to orbit on Tuesday, NASA officials said.

HOUSTON - On the day shuttle astronauts exchanged hugs and received a traditional Russian welcome of bread and salt after docking with the International Space Station, NASA said yesterday that more pieces of foam came off Discovery during the launch and that one may have hit a wing. They said they were confident, however, that the suspect piece of foam was so small that it could have caused no damage that would prevent Discovery from returning safely to Earth. The foam piece was one of three revealed in new images released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

HOUSTON - NASA put future space shuttle flights on indefinite hold yesterday after agency managers acknowledged that a piece of insulating foam nearly as large as the piece that doomed Columbia in 2003 fell off Discovery's external fuel tank during launch. The announcement of what NASA called a "debris event" threw the shuttle program into disarray a day after tens of thousands, including first lady Laura Bush, cheered Discovery and its seven-member crew as they began a mission to the International Space Station.

CHICAGO - In their first opportunity to face NASA administrators since the agency's budget ruled out repairs to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, members of Congress questioned yesterday why a repair mission had seemingly evaporated after growing enthusiasm for the idea. Of the $93 million for the Hubble in the budget proposed last week, $75 million was earmarked for a suicide craft that will guide the telescope into a final descent into the ocean once its usefulness has run out, while $18 million was to be used for software upgrades that would allow Hubble to continue doing science after its worn-out parts inevitably begin to fail.

CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA managers decided yesterday to officially target a three-week period starting in mid-May for the space shuttle's return to flight. A combination of delays caused by summer hurricanes and continuing technical challenges led program officials to conclude four weeks ago that an earlier launch opportunity in March and April was not feasible. Yesterday's decision means the shuttle's first flight since the February 2003 Columbia accident is tentatively planned between May 12 and June 3. Some in the program privately contend that those dates likely will slip again to July or possibly September because of the amount of work that lies ahead.

COLLEGE PARK - With top NASA officials unwilling to risk astronauts' lives to service the Hubble Space Telescope, and with the clock ticking toward the moment when fading batteries or failed gyroscopes are likely to cripple it, perhaps only a miracle can save the revered observatory. Or a robot. Enter David L. Akin, a robotics engineer and director of the Space Systems Laboratory at the University of Maryland. Almost unnoticed, Akin and his team at College Park have spent 14 years - and $14 million of NASA's money - developing a robot called Ranger to repair and upgrade orbiting satellites, particularly Hubble.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A 12-foot experimental plane equipped with a special jet engine streaked across the Pacific Ocean at more than seven times the speed of sound yesterday, shattering a technological barrier and brightening future prospects for super-fast airline flights. Flying faster than any aircraft ever built, NASA's X-43A "Hyper X" plane reached a top speed of about 5,000 mph, or about a mile and a half per second, before the unmanned craft was intentionally ditched into the ocean.

HOUSTON - The NASA official who ran shuttle management meetings during the fatal Columbia mission said yesterday that she did not hear the continuing worries of engineers about debris that had struck the shuttle. In her first public statement, Linda Ham, chairwoman of the mission management team, defended NASA and its staff with passion, and at times with tears. But her account also depicted a space agency in which internal communications broke down, whether because of a failure of process or of courage.

WASHINGTON - The board investigating the shuttle Columbia accident recommended yesterday that NASA find a way to allow astronauts to check for damage to the orbiter and fix it while in space. The suggestion is not unexpected - NASA has been working on a solution since March. But it is a tough problem, and the board said it must be addressed before another shuttle is launched. Plans for an on-orbit repair system for the tiles that cover the shuttle's belly were jettisoned not long after Columbia's first mission, in 1981.