The crew of Discovery spent their their first full day in space preparing one of the most comprehensive in-flight inspections of any shuttle flight. As the Discovery approaches its Thursday rendezvous with the International Space Station, the astronauts began deploying a boom to be used for inspecting any possible damage to the spacecraft caused by debris shed by the external fuel tank during liftoff.

The astronauts took additional images of the shuttle's wings and nose cap on Wednesday using laser, digital and video cameras attached to a 50-foot boom that can an spot damage as small as an eighth of an inch. "We saw nothing that gives us any kind of concern about the health of the crew or the vehicle,'' said Wayne Hale, shuttle program manager.

The inspections, expected to take about 6 1/2 hours, were ordered after a chunk of hard insulating foam from the external fuel tank struck Columbia on lift off in 2003. Early video images of Discovery's liftoff revealed small pieces of foam breaking away, one of them actually hitting the spacecraft but shuttle managers did not consider them troubling.

NASA officials were still high on the success of Discovery even as they said much work remains ahead, including the evaluations of several pieces of foam debris dislodged from the orbiter's fuel tank during take off. A video camera on Discovery's external tank recorded at least three, possibly four, pieces of foam on the shuttle fuel tank falling off two minutes and 47 seconds into the launch.

According to  NASA space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, "It could be an ice frost ramp, it could be something else. Both of those are interesting because they are after the time we are concerned about aerodynamic transport doing damage to shuttle tile." Shuttle officials said they expected to see foam loss during Discovery's launch and they are currently waiting the first report from analysts going through the images.

STS-121 mission specialist Michael Fossum and crewmate Stephanie Wilson conducted a photographic survey of Discovery's external tank separation and reported seeing what appeared to be a piece of cloth drifting between the shuttle and its discarded fuel tank. But NASA imagery analysts determined the object as ice drifting away from Discovery.

Wayne Hale, NASA’s space shuttle manager said that the modified orange external tank that powered the space shuttle Discovery’s July 4th launch performed remarkably well despite the incidence of fuel tank foam debris falling from Discovery’s launch stack. "I think the tank performed very, very well indeed," he said. "We saw nothing that gives us any kind of concern about the health of the crew of the vehicle."

NASA said the foam incidents occurred after they could have caused any damages and all but one were too small to be a risk to the shuttle. The ramp dislodged a one-pound piece of foam debris during Discovery's launch which did not strike the orbiter but was described as unacceptably large for NASA's safety standards. The space agency provided a rundown of the some of the debris events observed during Discovery's launch:

• A falling shim used to separate shuttle tiles during flight fell at the launch pad.
• Some foam loss from the aft skirt of one of Discovery’s twin solid rocket boosters, which is no worry for the orbiter, Hale said.
• A small piece of foam debris falling past the left leg of the forward bipod falls aft with no shuttle impact 4 minutes and 50 seconds after launch.
• Several foam pieces seen falling from Discovery’s tank at 2 minutes and 53 seconds after launch. Some are near the orbiter’s fuselage, with no damage or contact confirmed.
• Another small foam event, with several particles with a single larger piece seen aft of the bipod, at 4 minutes and 45 seconds into the flight.
• A small piece of foam that appears to have bounced off the mid-body of Discovery’s belly late in the ascent.
• At 5 minutes and 48 seconds, several pieces of foam debris seen falling on the port side with no impact to Discovery.

"It’s all very minor, it’s all very light," Hale said. "We don’t see any concerns for the orbiter, but of course we will do a 100 percent inspection of the heat shield." The removal of a protective foam ramp that screened a cable tray and pressurization lines from wind stresses during flight is the biggest in the Discovery's external tank.

With only a few days before the STS-121 Discovery Launch, NASA Safety Chief Bryan O'Connor speaks up about foam concerns that ended the exploring days of space shuttle Columbia and its crew. Mr. O'Connor, a former astronaut  and now NASA's top safety official objected to the agency's decision to press ahead with the launch of Discovery next month without fixing a potentially catastrophic foam-shedding problem, but said he won't appeal and won't resign in protest because he does not believe the shuttle astronauts' lives are in danger.

O'Connor, who along with NASA Chief Engineer Christopher Scolese voted against a launch during the flight-readiness meeting held over the weekend at Kennedy Space Center, said that they could have made one last private appeal to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who made the ultimate decision. But they did not since the risk would seem to not harm the astronauts in any way.

Mr. O'Connor continued to share his worries that NASA's tight schedule which includes trying to complete construction of the space station and retire the shuttles in 2010 in the agenda, could be interfering with safety. This statement was countered by shuttle program manager, Wayne Hale, when he recently said that "there is no consideration of schedule pressure in the safety arena." Let's just hope and pray that the NASA officials did the right call so as not to repeat the tragedy that befell Columbia.

NASA's Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale will be available to media live via satellite from 7 to 9 a.m. EDT on June 20, to discuss the current status of the program and the next shuttle mission, STS-121.

Hale has overall responsibility for the program's safe conduct. He joined the Space Shuttle Program as deputy manager after the the shuttle Columbia accident. He spearheaded the restructuring of the team to ensure all levels of expertise have input into problem solving, especially on issues on safety.

The Discovery is targeted to be launched to the International Space on July 1, but could extend until July 19. In the 12-day mission, the crew will test new hardware and techniques to improve shuttle safety, deliver supplies, make repairs, and bring a third crew member to the station.

The interviews will be carried live on the NASA TV Media Channel and analog satellite. The analog coordinates are: AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 5C, 3800 MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz. The Media Channel is available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal via satellite AMC-6, 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, it's on AMC-7, 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.

NASA will host its traditional post-Flight Readiness Review news conference on Saturday, June 17, (no later than 2pm EDT) to announce key decisions about Discovery's mission, STS-121. The conference, to be aired live on NASA TV, will include the selection of an official launch date. The NASA officials who will attend the briefing from the Kennedy Space Center include:

• Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator
• Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations
• Wayne Hale, Space Shuttle Program manager
• Mike Leinbach, NASA launch director

The news conference follows a two-day detailed assessment of the readiness of Space Shuttle Discovery for launch to be conducted on June 16 and 17. The specific start time of the news conference is dependent on the meeting's conclusion.