By MARCIA DUNN
Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA discovered a worrisome gouge on Endeavour’s belly soon after the shuttle docked with the international space station Friday, possibly caused by ice that broke off the fuel tank a minute after liftoff.

The gouge - about 3 inches square - was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost.

“What does this mean? I don’t know at this point,” said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team. If the gouge is deep enough, the shuttle astronauts may have to patch it during a spacewalk, he said.

Columbia was destroyed during re-entry four years ago because of a hole in its wing, the result of a large chunk of foam insulation that broke off the external fuel tank and slammed into the wing at liftoff. Ice is heavier than foam, however, and would cause more damage to the thermal cover that protects the shuttle from the intense heat of re-entry at flight’s end.

NASA was still rejoicing over the shuttle’s arrival at the space station, and the grand entrance by Morgan, Christa McAuliffe’s backup for Challenger’s tragic mission in 1986, when engineers saw photos of the gouge.

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