New Fuel Tank Is Ready for Shuttle
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MIAMI — NASA has finished building a fuel tank that was reconfigured to eliminate the debris problem that doomed the shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts, agency officials said Tuesday.
Project managers called the step a major advance in returning the U.S. space program to manned flight after the shuttles were grounded when Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003.
The first reconfigured tank is to be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida by Friday, as the space agency prepares for the shuttle Discovery’s launch in May or early June.
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