Intro music.
Part of NASA's Return to Flight safety research is being carried out by a highly modified F-15B aircraft.
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is using the "The Lifting Insulating Foam Trajectory," or LIFT
experiment to document the behavior of a small piece of foam
that breaks free from a specially made panel on the aircraft.
The foam panel is built to mimic the Space Shuttle's fuel tank.
Special high-speed digital video cameras installed on the F-15B are trained on the paths of free-flying foam pieces.
Data collected from the LIFT experiments gives engineers a better understanding of how these small pieces of foam behave
when they are shed from the Space Shuttle's External Tank during launch.
Significant steps have already been taken to minimize the chance of foam shedding during launch with a LIFT from NASA's F-15B aircraft.