NASA announced on Thursday that it would not repair a torn thermal blanket near the commander's window on the space shuttle Discovery, which will return to Earth next week.
   
"We have cleared Discovery to reenter and have decided not to take any action on the thermal blanket because we think it represents negligible concern at this time," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told a press conference at the space center in Houston.
   
According to Hale, the decision was made after days of analysis concluded the risk of serious damage to the shuttle on reentry from the torn blanket breaking off and hitting the shuttle was "remote."
       
If the repair was necessary, Discovery's astronauts would have to conduct a fourth and unplanned spacewalk. On Wednesday, one spacewalker completed an unprecedented repair to fill gaps in two areas of protruding heat protective tiles.
   
The shuttle is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on Monday after a 13-day mission, the first shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.
   
The US space agency hopes no heat protection problem would occur, leading to a repeat of the Columbia accident. The tragedy, in which the seven astronauts were killed, was blamed on a big chunk of insulation foam breaking off the external fuel tank and harming the shuttle wing on liftoff.
   
Hale said NASA cannot be 100 percent confident about a zero risk during reentry, but "we've assessed this risk to the very best of our engineering knowledge and we believe that it is remote, small, whatever adjective you want to put with that."

(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2005)