posted 07-21-2007 09:56 AM               

NASA engineers are examining seals known as O-rings that go between space shuttle booster rockets because recent batches have shown a higher-than-usual amount of unmixed rubber.

...NASA engineers are checking to make sure the O-rings in Endeavour's boosters aren't part of the batches under examination, but they don't expect them to be, NASA spokesman Rob Navias said today. The investigation was first reported by USA Today.

"It's not serious," Navias said. "We fully expect it will have no impact on launch."

"It's a paper chase that we typically do when another batch of hardware shows an issue that we want to take a look at a little more carefully... We don't even know if the O-rings in question are bad," he said.

posted 07-21-2007 10:45 AM               

However, space agency officials said Friday the seals installed on Endeavour's two boosters have passed pre-launch testing.

The inspection of other seals from the same manufacture batch is not expected to derail efforts to launch Endeavour's two-week assembly mission to the international space station on Aug. 7.

Engineers will present their findings at NASA's Flight Readiness Review at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday and Thursday, a meeting of the agency's top managers to review preparations for the mission and establish a formal launch date.

"The gist of it is, for this mission — or any other mission — the O-rings must pass a set of standard tests and meet all of our engineering requirements," said NASA's Allard Beutel, the shuttle program's top spokesman. "There is nothing that indicates a problem."