Hole found in shuttle Atlantis

NASA says a piece of space debris punched a small hole in one of space shuttle Atlantis' radiator panels during its recent 12-day spaceflight.

Damage from debris has been NASA's top safety issue since the destruction of shuttle Columbia in February 2003, when insulating foam came off the ship's fuel tank during launch and punched a hole in the shuttle's protective heat shield.

NASA spokeswoman Jessica Rye says the radiator damage, which measures slightly more than a quarter of a centimetre in diameter, has been found during routine post-landing inspections at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Atlantis landed safely on September 21 and the damage went undetected during its flight, despite three intensive inspections.

Those assessments focused on the shuttle's heat shield.

While the radiator is a critical system, the metal panels are not exposed during the ship's fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere for landing.

The panels unfold from the payload bay doors to cool the ship during flight.

"Radiators are potentially dangerous because they affect life support systems and temperature controls," William Schonberg, a space debris researcher and a civil engineering professor at the University of Missouri, said.

Since losing Columbia, NASA has developed a suite of instruments to assess how well the shuttles fared during the supersonic climb to orbit.

NASA last year also mandated an inspection late in the mission to check for damage.

After seeing debris flying in the vicinity of the shuttle, NASA postponed Atlantis' homecoming for a day for a second survey but the damage was not detected.

It is not known if the radiator panel damage is related to the debris.

Atlantis' mission, which ended with a safe touchdown at the Kennedy Space Centre, was NASA's first to resume construction of the International Space Station (ISS) since the Columbia disaster.

- Reuters