Hours after Shuttle Discovery's launch Tuesday morning, NASA operators found that a thermal tile and pieces of insulation had dropped off.

Shuttle operation officials said it was not yet clear whether the debris had caused any damage to Discovery. More than 100 investigators from NASA's Kennedy, Marshall, and Johnson space centers have been summoned to analyze the launch video.

It will take several days to make a full judgment on the damage to the shuttle, if any, and decide how to deal with it, according to NASA operations manager John Shannon.

"We're going frame-by-frame through the imagery," Shannon said. "I fully expected we would see things that we hadn't seen in the past."

A bit of tile captured on camera appeared to fly off the shuttle's belly, near the landing cabin door.

Also, the NASA video reveals what appears to be a piece of insulation coming off the shuttle's external fuel tank two minutes into flight. But it did not strike the orbiter that carries the seven astronauts, the NASA manager said.

Thermal tile and insulation protect the shuttle from the heat produced by air friction. Normally, the loss of small pieces of tile or insulation will not cause a serious breach of safety.

However, the news is a cause for concern because a piece of insulation punched a hole in the left wing of Shuttle Columbia during its launch in 2003. The shuttle subsequently exploded while returning to Earth, killing all seven astronauts on board.

To prevent such disaster from reoccurring, NASA installed more than 110 cameras on Discovery as it rumbled toward orbit. The new cameras are meant to provide better information in case of any damage to the shuttle's exterior, NASA said.

Source: Xinhua