WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Astronaut James Reilly works in an extravehicular mobility unit spacesuit inside a thermal vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center, rehearsing the testing of materials, tools and techniques for repairing Space Shuttle thermal protection systems. This particular test, conducted Dec. 10, 2004, involved the application of a caulk-like crack repair material to samples of reinforced carbon-carbon, the same material that makes up the Space Shuttle wing leading edge. The cured test samples will be analyzed, and some will be subjected to simulated atmospheric reentry conditions in another test chamber at JSC.