Several pieces of debris were videotaped flying off shuttle Discovery during its flight into space Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.

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VIDEO: Debris Falls Off Shuttle

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"We do see some small debris coming off," Forbes said. "We are not sure exactly what it was but we can only make an assumption that it is the external tank foam."

During the flight, three or four pieces of debris were seen flying off the tank, and another popped off a bit later, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.

Mission Control later told the astronauts the latter piece seemed to strike the belly of Discovery, but cautioned it was no concern because of the timing, according to the Associated Press.

"We saw three, perhaps four pieces come off," shuttle mission Manager Wayne Hale said. "We also saw another piece or two come off at about 4 minutes and 50 seconds. Both of those are interesting because they are after time we are concerned about aerodynamic transport causing damage to the shuttle tiles."

Hale said the debris fell off more than three minutes into flight, according to Local 6 News reporter Mike DeForest.

"By that point, the atmosphere is so thin that if a chunk of foam were to break off the external tank, it is basically just going to float around in a vacuum and possibly bounce into the shuttle but not cause the kind of striking damage that you might see two minutes into flight as we saw during Discovery's last launch."

Also, the astronauts reported seeing what they described as a large piece of cloth tumbling away from Discovery soon after they reached orbit. It looked like a thermal blanket from the shuttle and was perhaps up to 8 feet long, they said.

Still, Hale and others on the launch management team were in a jubilant mood over the smooth liftoff.

Mission managers will analyze the video Tuesday night, the report said.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.