Shuttle Discovery's Antenna on the Fritz

The Ku-band antenna on Space Shuttle Discovery is not working, according to NASA. Among other things, the antenna is used to downlink high data rate communications, including television. That means images being taken today of Discovery’s thermal protection system (TPS) will have to be recorded and transmitted back to Mission Control after the shuttle docks with the International Space Station (ISS) using the ISS antenna. Imaging the TPS to check for damage is a routine precaution since the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy. Spaceflightnow.com reports that the antenna also is used as a radar dish during rendezvous operations, but that the crew has other instruments it can use and the loss of the antenna should not be a major problem.