NASA engineers were trying to identify an object that floated away from Discovery and were analyzing a protrusion found on its rudder Friday, a day before the space shuttle was scheduled to land. The two issues were noticed after a routine test of the spacecraft’s flight control systems and steering jets. The astronauts reported to Mission Control that they observed a rectangular object, about 1 to 1 1/2 feet long, floating away from the tail of the shuttle around the right wing. They also reported seeing something sticking out from the left side of the shuttle’s rudder.
