The US space shuttle Discovery seems to have been spared serious damage from the insulation that flew off the fuel tank during liftoff.

And it looks safe to fly home in a week. NASA delivered this message a day after it said the flying debris captured on video at Discovery's launch, was similar to what brought down shuttle Columbia in 2003.

NASA is specifically concerned with this image taken from the external fuel tank, showing a piece of foam ripped from the tank just after the rocket engines were jettisoned.

At Mission Control in Houston, NASA says initial reports suggest the shuttle is in good shape.

John Shannon, Flight Operations Manager NASA, said: "It looks like all of the foam loss from the tank did not hit the orbiter. Obviously, the four areas of interest are being the bi-pod ramp, the divot behind the bi-pod ramp, the ice frost ramp, and the PAL ramp. They've got a pretty good trajectory on the bipod ramp, the ice frost ramp and the PAL ramp. And, it looks like, from their computer simulation, none of those touched the orbiter."

But NASA officials cautioned it would be another three days before the space agency can conclusively give the shuttle a clean bill of health.

For now, the US space agency has suspended all further shuttle flights.

Earlier on Thursday, Discovery astronauts boarded the International Space Station, the first shuttle crew to visit since the Columbia disaster.

If everything checks out as NASA expects, then Discovery will be free to return to Earth on August 7th as planned, following an eight-day space station visit.

Source: CCTV