Space Shuttle Returns to Hangar for Repairs

Space shuttle Discovery completed a nearly 10-hour trek back to the hangar Thursday to have a new and safer fuel tank installed, along with a heater to prevent a dangerous buildup of ice on its surface.

The spacecraft is being readied for liftoff in mid-July on the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster over two years ago. Discovery was already on the launchpad when NASA concluded that ice that forms on the external tank when it is filled with super-cold fuel could break off during liftoff and prove as lethal as the chunk of foam insulation that doomed Columbia.