NASA鈥檚 newly tightened security policy is facing fresh scrutiny 24-hours before the launch of shuttle Atlantis. The shuttle will leave for the Kennedy Space Center for the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday to carry out major construction work.
NASA has tightened shuttle launch security in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. New security measures include keeping launch information under wraps until 24 hours before take-off and keeping certain shuttle crew activities secret.
But some shuttle launch times can be calculated in advance using publicly available information. And recently one of the space agencies contractor鈥檚 accidentally posted the launch time of a future shuttle mission on its web site.
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But despite such problems, terrorism experts such as Magnus Ranstorp at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, says that NASA is right to have introduced the countermeasures.
鈥淚t is absolutely necessary to take these kinds of precautions, even though they are not foolproof,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey will never be able to completely eliminate that sort of information. It is about making it as difficult as possible.鈥�
Ranstorp adds that terrorists would undoubtedly view a shuttle launch as a 鈥渉igh-value target鈥�.
Calculated risk
NASA has only revealed that the space shuttle Atlantis will launch from Kennedy Space Center on Thursday evening, between 1900 GMT and 2300 GMT. But launches to the ISS can be calculated to within a few minutes by monitoring the station鈥檚 orbit.
This information is available on NASA鈥檚 own web site. According to these calculations, Atlantis must take-off between 1710 and 1715 GMT, unless there is an unforeseen delay.
On Monday it emerged that Spacehab, a contractor that builds shuttle cargo bay modules, posted the launch time of a July shuttle launch on its web site. The launch will carry the first Israeli astronaut. The information was on the website for four days, according to SpaceFlight Now.
Thursday鈥檚 Atlantis shuttle mission will begin a major stage of construction work at the ISS. The shuttle will carry a hexagonal frame known as the S-Zero truss that will form the backbone of a giant new solar array. The array will be 100 metres long when completed.
The S-Zero truss also features a set of rails that will be used to transport the station鈥檚 robot arm. This will make further construction work outside the ISS possible. The S-Zero truss will be put in place during four six-hour spacewalks planned for the 11-day mission.