Shuttle Booster Was Tested With Outdated Ring

BRIGHAM CITY, Utah — An old-model nozzle inlet ring was used in the final test of Morton Thiokol’s redesigned space shuttle booster rocket, but NASA doesn’t believe the discovery will delay next week’s scheduled shuttle launching, a spokesman said Wednesday.

NASA spokesman Ed Medal said it had not yet been determined if outdated rings were used in the two boosters attached to the space shuttle Discovery, scheduled for launching on Sept. 29, but a preliminary investigation indicated they were not.

“There’s no indication that the old configuration is in the boosters (in Discovery). But we’ve got to go ahead and check the records and clear that,” Medal said.

“We certainly don’t believe the situation will impact the launch, though,” Medal said at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., which oversees the booster rocket contract.

When asked how the ring with the old design might have been installed on the test rocket, he said: “We’re taking a long, hard look at how the old ring got there. One of the leading possibilities is a cross-labeling of parts.”

Medal said it is necessary to check records because actually searching through Discovery for the ring would be too difficult.

“The old design worked perfectly well on all space shuttle flights. The modification was a very minor one,” Medal said.