CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – NASA managers on Friday cleared the US space shuttle Endeavor for lift-off on March 11 on the first of three flights to deliver Japanese research complex to the International Space Station.

As a result to the destroyed Columbia in 2003, the blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was scheduled to take place at 2:28 a.m. EST. The shuttle Atlantis returned from a mission to deliver Europe’s Columbus research laboratory to the space station on February 20.

The seven-man Endeavour crew includes two of NASA’s most experienced fliers, four rookies and Japan’s Takao Doi, who already participated in a shuttle research mission in 1997.

Endeavour’s mission will also include a test of heat shield repair technique NASA wants to demonstrate before a servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope in late August or Early September.

NASA is hoping to fly six shuttle missions this year. The space agency needs to carry out 11 remaining space station construction missions by September 2010 when the shuttles are set for retirement.

Micrometeorites and undetectable bits of space junk (0.4 mm small) pose serious threats to every current and future manned space mission. The particles could travel in as fast 12 miles per second, with enough momentum to melt and vaporize aluminum spacecraft skin. To detect and find small holes, astronauts use handheld ultrasonic devices, such as directional microphones, which is a very time-consuming process. NASA scientists seek other solutions to focus on new wireless technologies that can spot tiny leaks by tracking vibrations across a spacecraft’s metal skin.

“There is turbulence as the air spreads in the vacuum and that reacts against the plate at the edge of the hole”, said Dale Chimenti, a professor at Iowa State University who was developing the inch-long sensors for NASA.

The sensors would stud the inside of the shell of a spacecraft, providing mission controllers a faster way to locate leaks before problems arise. Multiple instruments will be needed to safeguard and protect the entire spacecraft and triangulate the signals to pinpoint a location. The technology may not be funded for use in the International Space Station or shuttle fleet, but interest from future space programs is high. Earthbound applications include monitoring pipelines and pressurized oil tankers.