'Endeavour' crew inspect damage to heat shield

By Rasha Madkour

in Houston, texas

The international space station is one piece closer to completion, after two spacewalking astronauts installed a cube- shaped spacer yesterday on to the orbiting lab's frame.

Back on Earth, Nasa continued to review data on a worrying 3in- square gouge on the belly of the docked shuttle Endeavour.

Wednesday's launch blasted teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates into space for a two-week mission. They will inspect the gouged area more closely today using the shuttle's robotic arm and laser-tipped extension boom. If the damage is deep enough, they may need to patch it during a spacewalk.

Damage to the shuttle's skin, which protects it from the intense heat of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, has become a focus of the space agency since the Columbia disaster in 2003.

n From nine tonight till 3am, a spectacular light-show of shooting stars, the annual Perseid meteor shower, will streak across the skies. This is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of debris left in the wake of the comet Swift-Tuttle hurtling through space at 135,000mph. The forecast is wet and cloudy in the North, but skywatchers can expect the weather to clear during the night.

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