Despite the fact that the Discovery space shuttle’s Integrated Radar and Communications System, or “KU band” radar – which facilitates the astronauts’ docking with the International Space Station (ISS) -, malfunctioned within minutes of its liftoff, the NASA officials are confident that the “anomaly,” as they term it, will not affect the safe docking of the shuttle.

In a statement, NASA specified: “Pilot astronauts are trained to rendezvous without radar.”

It was shortly after Discovery blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center early Monday that the KU-band antenna - a 3-foot dish antenna on a 7-foot-long assembly positioned in the payload bay – suffered a glitch, with around three small pieces of foam coming off. Moreover, 42 seconds after the Discovery’s liftoff, a thermal tile apparently broke loose from the tail of the shuttle.

However, according to LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team, the loss of the tile is a “non-issue,” because it occurred in the trailing edge of the speed brake panel - an area which hardly witnesses any heat during re-entry.

Nonetheless, the Discovery rendezvous would likely be slightly more complicated than usual, due to the antenna glitch. Without the antenna, the seven-member Discovery team has no way to send or receive big packages of information – such as the images of nose and wings of the shuttle – which are generally sent immediately to Mission Control.