NASA’s shuttle programme manager, John Shannon said that the cracks appeared due to a combination of substandard material and assembly issues.

The problem is resolved now
The cracks appeared in five out of the 108 struts, which hold instruments in the centre of the tank. Engineers have repaired the damaged struts made of aluminium alloy and the remaining struts are also being reinforced as a precaution.

The cracks are under evaluation and NASA hopes they will not delay the much delayed Feb. 3rd launch.

The launch of the space craft has already been delayed several times. Some other cracks in the shuttle have forced NASA to defer the Dec. 17 launch and push it to February.

Since then, the technicians have been scanning the external fuel tank including all the 108 support beams called stringers and in the process discovered small cracks on top of stringers on panel 6.

The commander of the crew is Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, who is on his maiden space voyage. Joining him are NASA’s Catherine Coleman, veteran of two space flight missions and European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli, who also had travelled to space earlier.

The crew from three nations
Though the astronauts are from three different countries, they know each other well and have served together as back up astronauts on some earlier missions too.