Shuttle Discovery's astronauts will inspect much of their ship's heat shielding Wednesday after a 4th of July liftoff that appeared to skirt the dangers of falling debris from its fuel tank.

Mission managers expressed confidence that inspections will confirm indications from launch photography that the fuel tank did not shed hazardous pieces of foam insulation, as happened on three of the last four flights.

Video showed several small objects breaking off at five different times during Discovery's 8 1/2-minute climb to orbit.

However, they broke off well after the first 2 minutes 15 seconds of flight, when the shuttle is vulnerable to critical strikes from foam. And only one piece of foam might have exceeded NASA's acceptable size limits.

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