...after
Discovery returns.
ABC World News Tonight just reported that NASA's launch of Discovery revealed that there is still a problem with foam impacting the Shuttle tile system. They're still reviewing the tapes of the most recent launch, but so far they've detected only some small damage to Discovery's tiles (not from impacting foam though), which NASA says shouldn't be a problem.
ABC says that NASA has said that they'll have to "go back to the drawing board" to figure out how to correct the problem, and that will necessitate no more Shuttle launches.
This may mean that the Space Shuttle may NEVER go back into space again. Under NASA's current plan, the CEV candidates (the vehicle that will replace the Shuttle) will begin test flights in 2008.
Update [2005-7-27 19:7:22 by Rimjob]:
Here's a link...
HOUSTON, United States (AFP) - NASA said it was grounding the US space shuttle fleet after a large piece of foam insulation broke off from the fuel tank of the Discovery shuttle on liftoff.
While the US space agency said the foam did not damage the shuttle on Tuesday's launch, a spokesman said that future flights are on hold until the problem is corrected.
"Until we're ready we won't fly again," said Bill Parsons, space shuttle program manager...
..."The fact is it didn't cause any damage to the orbiter that we're aware of at this time. It didn't impact the orbiter at all," Parsons said.
Nevertheless, he said, future flights will remain on hold until the problem is solved.
"This is a test flight. Obviously we have some more work to do," said Parsons.