There was a near miss of heat tile damage from a foam strike very early in the STS program - STS-27 but it was on a classified military payload flight and the w

There was a near miss of heat tile damage from a foam strike very early in the STS program - STS-27 but it was on a classified military payload flight and the whole thing was ignored. I wouldn't quite say "covered up" but the damage would have been a lot harder to hand-wave away if this had been a normal mission with all the media coverage those got.