Astronaut to stitch torn thermal blanket

Houston: High-tech Nasa may repair a torn heat-resistant blanket on the space shuttle Atlantis in a low-tech way - by sending an astronaut out to stitch it together, the US space agency said.

The space-suited seamster would use stainless steel wire and a hooked needle to sew the protruding blanket into place, said deputy shuttle programme manager John Shannon.

He said the universal fix-it tool - duct tape - was discussed, but quickly discarded. "Duct tape doesn't work in the vacuum of space," he told reporters at Johnson Space Centre.

Nasa has added two days and a fourth spacewalk to the shuttle's mission to repair the small tear in the thermal blanket near the ship's tail. The blanket peeled back during launch to expose a small triangle of underlying layers that could be damaged by heat when Atlantis returns to Earth on June 21.

Nasa yesterday began retracting an old solar array on the international space station to make way for a new array, hoping to avoid the problems that plagued removal of another power-generating wing last year.