Atlantis suffered major MMOD hit

From nasaspaceflight.com comes news that the recent Atlantis mission may have come dangerously close to disaster with a rather large puncture in one of the radiators on the cargo bay doors. Imagine if this had hit the brittle high temperature Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panels on the nose or leading edges. Imagine if it hit a spacewalking astronaut. Fortunately, it didn't even puncture the plumbing in the coolant loop, which would have brought the mission to an end.

"Shuttle orbiter Atlantis was hit by a MMOD (micrometeoroid/orbiting debris) event during STS-115, which NASA is describing as the "first or second largest hit" in the history of the Shuttle program.

While the debris hit a radiator panel on the cargo bay doors, NASA are concerned, given the size of the MMOD, which they claim was large enough to have penetrated - possibly critically - Atlantis' heatshield. "

If you're interested there's lot's more detail in the link.