View Full Version : [Space] NASA - STS-116 - ISS-12A.1 (Discovery)
NASA STS-116 - International Space Station
http://www.spacehab.com/missions/sts-116/images/patch.gif
STS Program Mission: STS-116 (117th flight, 33th OV-103 flight)
ISS Program Assembly Flight: 12.1A
Orbiter: Discovery (OV-103)
Launch Pad: 39B
Mission duration: 10 days, 19 hours 25 min
Landing site: KSC
Inclination/Altitude: 51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles
Payload:
3rd Port Truss segment (P5)
Crew:
Commander Mark Polansky
Pilot William Oefelein
Mission Specialist Robert Curbeam
Mission Specialist Joan Higginbotham
Mission Specialist Nicholas Patrick
Mission Specialist Christer Fuglesang
Mission Specialist Sunita Williams
STS-116 Press Kit:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/162182main_STS-116_Press_Kit.pdf (7.3 MB)
-----
Live Coverage:
NASA TV - Real Media: http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram
NASA TV - Windows Media: http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx
NASA TV - Real Audio:
http://www.nasa.gov/ram/55643main_NASATV_Audio_Only.ram
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/images/116quicklook1.gif
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/images/116quicklook2.gif
Da NasaSpaceFlight.com:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4897
STS-116 milestone - A Small Victory
Workers are in the process of handing over Shuttle Discovery to rollout and pad crew, as STS-116 draws closer to making its target launch window - which opens on December 6.
The continued smooth flow towards the accelerated launch schedule for Discovery gained a note from Shuttle manager Wayne Hale, who praised the workforce for this achievement, ahead of Wednesday's rollout to the pad.
The accelerated launch schedule was seen by many as 'ambitious' - especially with the amount of work that was still to be completed on both Discovery and Atlantis, the latter required for LON (Launch On Need) support.
However, with Hale - regarded by most people as the best Shuttle manager ever to head the program - at the helm, Discovery starts her trip to Pad 39B with several days of contingency remaining in the flow, ahead of the 10 day window that opens on the 6th.
'Wayne Hale said many thought a few months ago we could not accelerate STS-116 launch one week,' noted the latest Shuttle integration report. 'This was accomplished, and he is proud of work on this.'
A key element of supporting STS-116 is the ability to have Atlantis ready for LON support (LON-317). Now that Discovery is set to head to the pad, workers have been transferred to that goal of finishing work on Atlantis.
STS-116 is now heading into the MOD FRR (Flight Readiness Review) on Wednesday (presentations available on L2 now), ahead of the full FRR later this month.
'Resources dedicated to OV-103 (Discovery) to get ready for rollout, now being shifted back to OV-104 (Atlantis) and OV-105 (Endeavour),' added the report, which listed outstanding work on Discovery's sister ships.
Such work included the change out of black boxes for S-band antenna, which is hoped will fix the problem of S-band dropouts seen on last flight (STS-115), and the completion of nose cap repairs.
As of this morning, Integrated drag chute operations are 'in work' - with payload bay door rigging also progressing. She was also powered up at 8am on Tuesday.
Endeavour was also powered up this morning at the same time, with crew module hatch seal removal and replacement in work, along with APU leak checks and functionality checks in work.
SRB (Solid Rocket Booster) elements are already arriving and being prepared for both STS-117 and STS-118. 'STS-117 right forward assembly and both aft assemblies for STS-118 going to Ground Operations.'
Also buoying the processing flow is the status of the External Tanks, with all flows now on schedule.
'ET-124-This is next tank. Tank due out December 17th. On schedule. Completed sprays to address foam thicknesses for PAL ramp. Made progress in drip lip locations. Some longeron sprays completed. ET-117-This is next tank following ET-124 Vertical in Cell A. On schedule. Plan first series of lower sprays this Sunday. ET-114-On schedule.'
A couple of outstanding issues that have been previously noted also received mentions, with the crack that was found on Discovery's landing gear - and the debris strike that punched a hole in one of Atlantis' radiator panels on orbit during STS-115.
'During rollover, someone noticed small crack in corner of bracket holding right door uplock proximity sensor,' noted the report. 'Not structural member. Only potential concern would be sensor becoming FOD inside wheel well if crack were more extensive.
'Approved using tape to secure sensor for now, and will fix next flight. (Engineering) representative wants to know who spotted crack, because (person) deserves recognition.'
On the MMOD strike, a level of testing has taken place at White Sands to help future evaluations of such incidents. Testing has seen twenty hypervelocity shots at the radiator panels, to gain engineering data.
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061109rollout/
Discovery moved to launch pad for upcoming blastoff
BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: November 9, 2006
Space shuttle Discovery journeyed to launch pad 39B overnight to begin final preparations for its nighttime blastoff December 7 on a delicate space station re-wiring mission.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061109rolloutpix/02.jpg
Discovery nears pad 39B at sunrise. Photo: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now
The four-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building, which began at 12:29 a.m. EST (0529 GMT), saw an Apollo-era transporter haul Discovery's mobile launch platform along Kennedy Space Center's crawlerway at a top speed less than one mph.
The transporter is powered by 16 traction motors feeding from two 2,750 horsepower diesel engines and consumed over 100 gallons of diesel fuel in each mile of the trip.
The shuttle reached the pad entrance at sunrise under clear, crisp skies. The rollout crew activated the transporter's jacking and leveling system for the slow creep up the ramp of pad 39B. The crawler uses hydraulic lifts to keep the shuttle level during the ramp ascent by jacking up the front-end of the platform. Once on the flat pad surface, a precision laser guidance system helped align the platform over the pad pedestals.
Technicians called the platform harddown on the pedestals at 9:03 a.m. EST (1403 GMT), officially completing the rollout.
The methodical process of hooking up the crew module assess and hydrogen vent arms extending from the launch tower, as well as electrical, propellant, communications and other lines between the ground systems and launch platform will begin.
A hot-fire test for Discovery's auxiliary power unit system is scheduled later today. The APUs provide the hydraulic pressure needed to move the ship's wing flaps and main engine nozzles and deploy the landing gear. Then the gantry-like rotating service structure will be moved around Discovery.
In the coming days, the shuttle's payload bay doors to be opened and the mission cargo loaded aboard the orbiter. And a practice countdown with the astronauts is planned for next week.
Liftoff remains targeted for December 7 at 9:36 p.m. EST. It will mark the first night shuttle launch in four years.
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061109status
Discovery mission extended; moving up launch ruled out
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: November 9, 2006
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061109status/discovery.jpg
Discovery arrived at pad 39B this morning. Photo: NASA-KSC
The shuttle Discovery was hauled to launch pad 39B today for work to ready the ship for blastoff Dec. 7 on a critical space station assembly and re-wiring mission. NASA managers considered moving launch up an additional day, to Dec. 6, but ruled that out today based on time needed to complete crew training and to develop software intended to prevent damage to the station's new solar arrays.
The software in question is designed to constantly monitor the positions of the sun-tracking arrays and warn flight controllers of possible rocket plume contamination or excessive structural loads, Sources said the new monitoring software - and the training needed to use it - likely cannot be formally certified before Discovery's current December launch window closes.
Instead, engineers hope to have a workable system in place by Dec. 7, although details about what needs to be done are not yet clear.
Mounted atop a powerful crawler-transporter, Discovery and its mobile launch platform began the 4.2-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pad at 12:29 a.m. The MLP was "hard down" at the pad by 9:03 a.m.
Discovery's crew - commander Mark Polansky, pilot William Oefelein, Nicholas Patrick, Robert Curbeam, European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, Joan Higginbotham and Sunita Williams - plans to fly to the Kennedy Space Center next week to review emergency procedures and participate in a dress rehearsal countdown Thursday.
A two-day flight readiness review to assess Discovery's processing is scheduled for Nov. 28-29. If no problems develop, launch will be targeted for no earlier than Dec. 7. The launch window that day opens at 9:30:42 p.m. and closes at 9:40:42 p.m. Liftoff will be targeted for the middle of the window, at 9:35:42 p.m.
The goal of the flight is to attach a short spacer segment to the station's solar array truss and to carry out a complex two-spacewalk re-wiring job to switch the station over from interim power to its permanent electrical system. That change over, which requires extensive realtime ground commanding and system power cycling during ongoing spacewalks, makes Discovery's flight the most complex station assembly mission yet attempted.
Mission STS-116 initially was baselined for 11 days with the possibility of extending the flight one day in orbit if on-board supplies permitted. NASA managers recently made that official, baselining a 12-day flight and adding a post-undocking (flight day 11) heat shield inspection to the crew's timeline. Here is a revised summary timeline:
FD-1 (12/07): Launch at 9:36 p.m.
FD-2 (12/08): Heat shield inspection
FD-3 (12/09): Space station docking; P5 truss removal from bay
FD-4 (12/10): Spacewalk 1: P5 attachment to P4 solar array segment
FD-5 (12/11): P6 port solar wing retraction
FD-6 (12/12): Spacewalk 2: Electrical channel 2/3 re-wiring
FD-7 (12/13): Crew off duty time; crew news conference
FD-8 (12/14): Spacewalk 3: Electrical channel 1/4 re-wiring
FD-9 (12/15): Equipment transfers
FD-10 (12/16): Discovery undocks from space station
FD-11 (12/17): Heat shield inspection
FD-12 (12/18): Cabin stow
FD-13 (12/19): Landing at 4:37 p.m.
Senior NASA managers meeting today at the Johnson Space Center ruled out moving the launch date up to Dec. 6. The flight already had been moved up a week, from Dec. 14 to Dec. 7. Crew trainers and the flight control team argued against another move to Dec. 6 to avoid losing another day of preparation.
Completing development of the new solar array monitoring software is a bit of a wild card in mission planning.
Before the station can be switched from interim to permanent power, one of the two solar array wings providing interim power must be retracted. In addition, the new array panels attached to the left side of the station's main solar power truss in September must begin rotating like a giant paddle wheel to keep face on to the sun.
As the arrays rotate on the end of a massive solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, their masts are moved at right angles, by so-called beta-gimbal joints, to change their pitch as required.
Engineers always knew the start of that complex, automated sun tracking would require careful monitoring to make sure station or shuttle thrusters did not deposit contamination on the solar cells or impart excessive loads that might damage or even break the fragile hardware.
As it turned out, the requirements for the software were late and development is not yet complete. Engineers are racing the clock to get a workable, if not certified, version in place by the opening of Discovery's launch window.
With that issue percolating in the background, Program Manager Wayne Hale asked the shuttle team to consider moving launch up to Dec. 6 as a way to add a day to Discovery's launch window. An extra day would provide a bit of insurance getting the shuttle mission off before running up against the end of the year.
When the shuttle's flight control software was developed in the 1970s, NASA managers did not envision the possibility of flying missions during the transition from one year to the next. Internal clocks, instead of rolling over to Jan. 1, 2007, would simply keep counting up, putting them at odds with navigation systems on the ground.
"It's an interesting problem because if you remember a few years ago, we went through the Y2K change and there was a lot of concern about what computers would do," Hale told reporters earlier this week. "The interesting thing about the shuttle computers and the ground computers that support the shuttle is they were never envisioned to fly through a year-end change over. So the shuttle computers actually keep counting and they believe it's day 366 instead of day 1 of the year.
"That sounds rather trivial, but the fact of the matter is to keep the navigation in synch with the rest of the world, which has changed from day 365 to day 1, you've got to make that change appropriately and it was never designed in."
Space station software, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up to handle year-end rollovers and in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, engineers re-evaluated the shuttle's software to make sure an emergency rescue mission, if needed, could safely fly across a new year.
"We had certified that for contingency use in the sense that if we ever had to fly a launch-on-need rescue mission and it happened to cross a year-end rollover, it would work," Hale said. "So we did quite a bit of testing on the software at that point. But there is a different level of testing that you need to do when you want to execute a procedure like that for a normal, planned, not contingency kind of operation.
"In April, we asked the team to go off and do that work. There had been a series of problems with that work and it turns out while we feel confident that it would work if we had to use it, we did not get the normal amount of testing and a normal amount of runtime on what are some very complicated procedures, both on the ground and with the crew to keep everything in synch across the end of the year.
"So right now, coming out of a review last week, it looks like we will not try to execute the flight over the year end," Hale said. "We're going to review that at the flight readiness review, so I would not call it a hard constraint at this time but rather a recommendation to take forward."
NASA managers today officially ruled out a Dec. 6 launch. A requirement to be back on the ground by Dec. 31 at the latest means Discovery must take off by Dec. 17, which would result in a landing Dec. 29 and still preserve two additional landing days in case of bad weather or other problems.
Florida's nighttime December weather is relatively mild and with 11 launch opportunities from Dec. 7 through Dec. 17, flight controllers are optimistic they'll get Discovery into space before the 2006 window closes.
"With the more benign weather that we have in Florida in December," Hale said, "we think that would probably be adequate to get us off."
marcozambi
16-11-2006, 13:54
Ciao!
Vi segnalo che oltre a seguire questa missione sulle pagine di questo ottimo forum, potete trovare ulteriori informazioni e commenti in lingua italiana su http://www.forumastronautico.it.
Ciao e complimenti per tutta l'ottima sezione dedicata allo spazio!!!
Ciao!
Vi segnalo che oltre a seguire questa missione sulle pagine di questo ottimo forum, potete trovare ulteriori informazioni e commenti in lingua italiana su http://www.forumastronautico.it.
Ciao e complimenti per tutta l'ottima sezione dedicata allo spazio!!!
Tnx per il link (non conoscevo..)
adesso dovro' ricavarmi ancora un altro po' di tempo per leggere 3d e news ;)
scusate se non seguo molto in questi ultimi giorni, sono molto impegnato... chi può aggiorni pure! ;)
scusate se non seguo molto in questi ultimi giorni, sono molto impegnato... chi può aggiorni pure! ;)
no problem! ;)
non ci sono pero' grandi notizie in questi gg..
giusto un paio di aggiornamenti dei lavori su ET e il Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT)
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4904
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4908
La prossima settimana terminerà la Flight Readiness Review (FRR)...
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
NASA ready for final STS-116 approval
By Chris Bergin, 11/21/2006 12:49:00 PM
NASA is closing in on their Flight Readiness Review (FRR) next week with only a few minor issues being worked. The milestone FRR will give the final official approval to proceed towards the December 7 launch target.
Both Discovery and Atlantis (LON-317) are ready to provide primary and rescue mission support for what will be the third Shuttle mission of 2006.
Discovery, on launch pad 39B, enjoyed an uneventful TCDT (Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test), with only a CRT - part of the orbiter's control system displays - failing during the two day test. That CRT has been replaced at the pad.
Other pre-launch activities are proceeding to plan, with the completion of orbiter APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) hydrazine loading, added to the loading of oxidizer into the OMS RCS (Orbital Manoeuvring System Reaction Control Systems).
Some troubleshooting exists - as with any pad flow - mainly relating to electrical elements on the orbiter, including the Advanced Health Management System (AHMS), which will debut on this flight.
'Plan to troubleshoot MTU signal after SCAPE is complete,' noted the expansive Shuttle Stand-up/Integration Report for November 20 (on L2). 'Will install hydraulic trays and hoses to re-run SSME FRTs. SSME actuator calibration coefficients were not written to the new AHMS, which was their procedural error.
'Caught error and will re-run FRTs on engine Wednesday. If complete FRTs, will power down this weekend. Have much powered-down work to perform.'
The AHMS is suffering from some teething problems, but will not have any constraints on STS-116, given it will be installed on one of Discovery's SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) to test its own reactions to the pressures endured during ascent. It will not have any control over the engine on this flight, along for the ride as a passive system.
'Working on command sequence discrepancy (for SSME actuator calibration coefficients not written to new AHMS) with USA Avionics. Concur that need to repeat engine 3 actuator calibration test performed at launch pad,' added SSME managers at Pratt & Whitney.
'Problem is calibration coefficients are written into temporary memory (S-RAM) and a command is required to transfer memory contents to EPROM (permanent memory). The command failed the checkout.'
Also relating to SSMEs is an investigation into a crack on one of the blades on an engine pump that flew with Atlantis on STS-115 earlier this year. The fault is deemed as minor.
'Dye penetrant inspection on STS-115 pump 8222 showed indication on one first stage blade on platform (.020 X .030 X .020 inch deep). Broke platform open, and metallurgy reports said appeared to be anomalous grain. Size of crack is well below critical initial flaw size for area (.045 inch). Mr. Hale (Space Shuttle manager) asked for more information as investigation continues.'
Meanwhile, on Atlantis herself - set to fly on STS-117 next spring, her related processing flow continues, ready to support her sister as the LON (Launch On Need) rescue ship. Work is proceeding along the scheduled timeline.
'Down to 102 tile cavities to bond. Plan to bond 11 this week. Chin panel fit checks in work. Plan powered-on testing today,' added the report. 'Plan SCAPE operations at 5:00 a.m. EST tomorrow to backfill manifolds for thruster R&R performed last week. Plan waterproofing Friday and Saturday.'
Stacking in the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) of the twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) that will help power Atlantis off the pad will begin on December 4, following the delivery of the segments that make up the boosters. Repair work on the VAB doors will also begin on December 4.
On the External Tank front, workers at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) have one again proved their worth, with ET-124 (required for LON and STS-117) still on schedule to be shipped out of New Orleans on December 17. However, a couple of production issues might delay the shipping by a few days - which is still within the required timeline for LON support of STS-116.
This tank also saw the remaining pressure on its schedule removed when NASA's Critical Design Review (CDR) on the modification of three IFR (Ice Frost Ramps) decided to leave the ramps 'as is' - given wind tunnel testing showed there was no notable improvements gained from 'sliming down' the ramps. Further evaluations will continue for future tanks.
'Wrapping up preparations for reinstallation of composite nose cone. Should secure nose cone this (week). LOX ice/frost ramp extensions trimmed. Trimming acreage spray on PAL ramp footprint. Bipod installation in work; about 20 percent complete on final routing and bonding of bipod heater and temperature sensor harnesses.
'Intertank venting and machining in progress (machining about 95 percent complete). Camera antenna about 99 percent complete, and should closeout next Monday. Harness routing on intertank about 85 percent complete associated with antenna. LO2 feedline fairing installed. Will spray 1979 drip lips tomorrow.
'These have been problematic, so have gone back on proficiencies and are taking results to technical subcommittee today for review. Completed last four 2026 drip lips. Preparing to install upper ice/frost ramps. Shakedowns are in work all over tank. Are few days down from December 17th delivery date, but are rerunning assessment today to replan with same target date.'
With many tanks now in various stages of processing, ready to support the busy final schedule for the Shuttle program, MAF continue to keep up the pace on the tanks required from the other missions of 2007.
ET-117 is now in Cell A at MAF, heading into final assembly. This tank is only a few days behind schedule. ET-120 is also moving through the MAF factory.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4915
Da SpaceFlightNow.com (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061127frrpreview):
Meeting to review plans for next week's shuttle launch
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: November 27, 2006
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061127frrpreview/discovery.jpg
Discovery remains scheduled for launch December 7. Photo: NASA-KSC
NASA managers are gathering at the Kennedy Space Center for a two-day flight readiness review Tuesday and Wednesday to assess the shuttle Discovery's launch processing and to set an official launch date for mission STS-116.
Liftoff currently is targeted for Dec. 7 and there do not appear to be any major issues that would force a delay. But the launch window is complex because it includes lighting, holiday and end-of-year issues that are not normally on the table.
As it now stands, the window opens Dec. 7 and closes Dec. 26 because of a so-called "beta angle cutout," that is, thermal issues associated with the international space station due to the angle between the plane of its orbit and the sun. Based on the beta angle, the shuttle cannot launch between Dec. 27 and Jan. 13.
To reach the international space station, Discovery must be launched when Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the lab's orbit. For mission STS-116, on Dec. 7, that works out to 9:35:45 p.m., resulting in NASA's first night launch since 2002. Daylight launch opportunities do not become available until Dec. 18.
Major post-Columbia objectives through the first three return-to-flight missions included photographing the shuttle's external fuel tank after separation in orbit to document how its foam insulation performed during ascent. For STS-116, NASA managers are relaxing that requirement based on the performance of the tank over the past three flights.
For the record, sufficient lighting for a camera mounted in the shuttle's belly does not become available until Dec. 20. For crew hand-held photography, good lighting is not expected until Dec. 24.
This Wednesday, rocket engines in a Progress supply ship will fire for 20 minutes to boost the space station's orbit slightly, giving Discovery's crew opportunities to rendezvous and dock on flight day three for any launch between Dec. 7 and Dec. 21.
Launches on Dec. 22, 24 and 26 would result in a flight day four rendezvous, which is considered unacceptable. If it comes to that, an additional space station reboost maneuver would be carried out Dec. 14 to ensure FD-3 dockings through the end of the shuttle's launch window.
A launch past Dec. 19 would result in the shuttle being in orbit during the year-end rollover from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. The "YERO" issue has received quite a bit of attention in recent months because of concern about possible computer glitches. The shuttle's flight software was not designed to handle the transition from one year to the next and YERO will be a topic of discussion during the flight readiness review this week.
Launches between Dec. 7 and 12 result in a landing before Christmas for a standard 12-day mission. A launch on Dec. 17 would result in a landing on Dec. 29, preserving two days for bad landing weather or some other contingency. Launches past Dec. 17 could result in a YERO flight, depending on weather or other problems, while a launch past Dec. 19 would require the shuttle to be in orbit over the year-end rollover.
Flight controllers are expected to recommend against flying across the transition, sources say, but senior managers may approve the option anyway based on recent tests and analysis. If so, flight controllers would prefer to have the shuttle docked at the station for the actual rollover to make sure they have time to resolve any computer glitches that might arise.
If the shuttle launches between Dec. 18 and 22, however, the shuttle would be undocked and in free flight. Launches Dec. 23 through Dec. 26 would result in a docked rollover.
That said, here are the latest launch times for Discovery. Readers should note the actual launch window opens exactly five minutes before the "in-plane" times listed below and closes five minutes later (all times in EST and subject to minor changes; YERO: year-end rollover; UM: umbilical camera; HH: handheld camera; Partial: some lighting available, but marginal):
DATE.......LAUNCH........DOCK...........LIGHTING...YERO.......ET IMAGERY
12/07/06...09:35:45 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/08/06...09:13:13 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/09/06...08:47:31 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/10/06...08:24:59 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/11/06...07:59:17 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/12/06...07:36:45 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/13/06...07:11:03 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/14/06...06:48:31 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/15/06...06:22:49 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/16/06...06:00:17 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
12/17/06...05:34:35 PM...FD-3...........Night......N/A........None
Note.......All 12+2 flights above land on or before 12/31
12/18/06...05:12:03 PM...FD-3...........Day........Undocked...None
12/19/06...04:46:21 PM...FD-3...........Day........Undocked...Partial UM
Note.......All flights below result in landings on or after Jan. 1
12/20/06...04:23:49 PM...FD-3...........Day........Undocked...UM
12/21/06...03:58:07 PM...FD-3...........Day........Undocked...UM
12/22/06...03:35:36 PM...FD-3/boost...Day........Undocked...UM/partial HH
12/23/06...03:09:53 PM...FD-3...........Day........Docked.....UM/partial HH
12/24/06...02:47:22 PM...FD-3/boost...Day........Docked.....UM/HH
12/25/06...02:21:39 PM...FD-3...........Day........Docked.....UM/HH
12/26/06...01:59:08 PM...FD-3/boost...Day........Docked.....UM/HH
-
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061127frrpreview/
From NasaSpaceFlight.com:
NASA approve STS-116 launch date
By Chris Bergin, 11/29/2006 5:41:00 PM
NASA managers have concluded their two day FRR (Flight Readiness Review) by approving the NET (No Earlier Than) December 7 launch of Shuttle Discovery on STS-116.
During the meeting, managers evaluated all updated concerns relating to the 12 day mission to the International Space Station (ISS) - including related issues of what will be the first night launch since the loss of Columbia.
The launch window will extend to December 17 - with a return to evaluations on whether they can launch after that date, given the conflict of YERO (Year End Rollover), which would require Discovery to be docked on the ISS during the end of year event.
More to follow shortly...
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061206update
Discovery's countdown rolls on amid final troubleshooting
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 6, 2006
NASA and contractor engineers are wrapping up around-the-clock work to resolve two last-minute technical issues that cropped up Tuesday during shuttle Discovery's countdown. While engineers are optimistic Discovery will be cleared for launch as planned Thursday, NASA's Mission Management Team will meet this afternoon to assess the data reviews.
Of more pressing concern, perhaps, forecasters now expect a 60 percent chance of low clouds that would prevent a launch attempt Thursday. In addition, conditions at all three of NASA's emergency runways in Spain and France are predicted to be no-go due to high winds, showers or both. At least one emergency trans-Atlantic landing site is required for launch, regardless of the weather in Florida.
"We're having a nice day here today at Kennedy Space Center, but tomorrow we are expecting a frontal system to come into the area and that is going to bring in a lot of cloud cover for the launch window," said shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters.
"So the forecast is trending toward the worst because right now, it looks like all that moisture is now trending on the models to be in the area. So because of that, we did increase our probability of KSC weather prohibiting launch to 60 percent due to low cloud ceilings."
Winters said the outlook for Friday is 70 percent no-go because of high winds, clouds and isolated showers, improving slightly to 60 percent no-go Saturday. Conditions in Spain and France improve, however, and at least one landing site should be available both days if conditions in Florida permit a launch.
Conditions should improve early next week but additional fronts are expected to move through Central Florida by the middle of the week, bringing more clouds and high winds.
"It does look like we're going to persist with this easterly flow through mid next week," Winters said. "But it does get a little more southeasterly on Tuesday and the winds come down some. ... So we're thinking weather starts getting more promising as we go into Sunday evening, Monday evening, but particularly Tuesday evening.
"We still are going to be concerned about crosswinds (at the shuttle landing strip), but we think Tuesday out of those three days is probably the best day. After that, we start being concerned about the next front that's going to be moving into the area. On Wednesday, we expect the weather to start deteriorating due to that front."
Discovery's mission to re-wire the international space station is scheduled to run 12 days. The shuttle needs to get off the ground by Tuesday to avoid being in orbit or landing on Christmas day.
Otherwise, the countdown is proceeding smoothly as engineers wrap up troubleshooting on two technical issues.
In one case, a large 800-pound launch pad power supply malfunctioned overnight Monday, sending a brief surge through the shuttle's electrical system. The power supply was replaced and engineers are reviewing data to make sure the spike didn't damage any orbiter systems. That review is almost complete and no problems have been found.
The other issue involves test data that has raised questions about the strength of a specific lot of adhesive used to secure insulation in joints between solid-fuel booster segments. Engineers are trying to determine if the adhesive is, in fact, suspect, if it is in place in Discovery's boosters and if so, does it represent a concern.
The insulation in question cannot be inspected at the pad. At least some engineers believe the adhesive isn't even needed because of how the joint operates when the motor is ignited. But the Mission Management Team ordered a review to make sure Discovery's boosters are good to go.
Cico the SSJ
07-12-2006, 19:59
che ore saranno qui in italia alla partenza?
che ore saranno qui in italia alla partenza?
3:36 del mattino, ma molto porbabilmente non partità stanotte.
2115 GMT (4:15 p.m. EST)
The Final Inspection Team is not reporting any areas of concern during its observations of Discovery this afternoon.
The team is responsible for checking the shuttle and launch pad one last time prior to liftoff. The team is comprised of engineers and safety officials from NASA, United Space Alliance and tank-builder Lockheed Martin. At the conclusion of their two-hour tour-of-duty, the team will have walked up and down the entire fixed service structure and mobile launcher platform.
The team is on the lookout for any abnormal ice or frost build-up on the vehicle and integrity of the external tank foam insulation.
The team uses a portable infrared scanner that gathers temperature measurements on the surface area of the shuttle and can spot leaks. The scanner will be used to obtain temperature data on the external tank, solid rocket boosters, space shuttle orbiter, main engines and launch pad structures. The scanner can also spot leaks of the cryogenic propellants, and due to its ability to detect distinct temperature differences, can spot any dangerous hydrogen fuel that is burning. The team member also is responsible for photo documentation.
2148 GMT (4:48 p.m. EST)
The Final Inspection Team is departing the launch pad, having wrapped up its checks of Discovery.
2130 GMT (4:30 p.m. EST)
A check of the current weather at Kennedy Space Center shows all conditions are acceptable for launch right now. But the forecast continues to predict low clouds and a chance of showers at launch time this evening.
2210 GMT (5:10 p.m. EST)
The latest weather briefing given to the astronauts indicates the forecast for Kennedy Space Center still includes concerns for low clouds and showers at launch time. The landing sites in Spain and France remain questionable due to cloud cover and thunderstorms. At least one of the three emergency sites must have acceptable weather for Discovery to be permitted to lift off.
Aggiornamento da un altro forum...
Gut is that there will be enough breaks in the clouds that they will go, and Istres (assuming there are no storms popping up) will be the TAL.
0010 GMT (7:10 p.m. EST Thurs.)
T-minus 90 minutes and counting. Countdown clocks continue to tick down to T-minus 20 minutes where the next hold is planned. Countdown activities remain on track for liftoff at 9:35:48 p.m.
At this point in the count, the ground launch sequencer software that will control the final nine minutes of the countdown has been initialized. Also, the solid rocket boosters' gas generator heaters in the hydraulic power units are turned on, the aft skirt gaseous nitrogen purge is starting and the rate gyro assemblies (RGAs) are being activated. The RGAs are used by the orbiter's navigation system to determine rates of motion of the boosters during the first stage of flight.
0048 GMT (7:48 p.m. EST Thurs.)
The shuttle's crew compartment hatch is confirmed to be closed and latched for flight.
0110 GMT (8:10 p.m. EST Thurs.)
T-minus 20 minutes and holding. The countdown has paused for a 10-minute built-in hold. Launch remains scheduled for 9:35:48 p.m. EST. There is a least a little bit of optimism growing that conditions at the Cape and one of the landing sites across the Atlantic will have acceptable weather for liftoff tonight. Time will tell.
0135 GMT (8:35 p.m. EST Thurs.)
Now one hour away from launch of Discovery.
Mission Control in Houston is loading Discovery's onboard computers with the proper guidance parameters based on the projected launch time.
0135 GMT (8:35 p.m. EST Thurs.)
Pilot Bill Oefelein is configuring the displays inside Discovery's cockpit for launch while commander Mark Polansky enables the abort steering instrumentation.
0134 GMT (8:34 p.m. EST Thurs.)
The Orbiter Closeout Crew is leaving the launch pad now.
0130 GMT (8:30 p.m. EST Thurs.)
T-minus 20 minutes and counting. The countdown has resumed after a 10-minute hold. Clocks will tick down for the next 11 minutes to T-minus 9 minutes where the final planned hold is scheduled to occur. The hold length will be adjusted to synch up with today's preferred launch time of 9:35:48 p.m.
Discovery's onboard computers are now transitioning to the Major Mode-101 program, the primary ascent software. Also, engineers are dumping the Primary Avionics Software System (PASS) onboard computers. The data that is dumped from each of PASS computers is compared to verify that the proper software is loaded aboard for launch.
0137 GMT (8:37 p.m. EST Thurs.)
The Main Propulsion System helium system has been reconfigured by pilot Bill Oefelein. Soon the gaseous nitrogen purge to the aft skirts of the solid rocket boosters will be started.
0141 GMT (8:41 p.m. EST Thurs.)
T-minus 9 minutes and holding. Countdown clocks have gone into the planned 45-minute, 48-second built-in hold. Today's launch remains set for 9:35:48 p.m. EST.
Marilson
08-12-2006, 02:09
mi scoccia interrompere il count di giofx ma ci tengo a dire che sono presente :read: e collegato su nasa tv a seguire il lancio :O
oh almeno non sono l'unico rimasto in piedi... :D
cmq il ora il weather è go al primary TAL site (Transatlantic Abort Landing Site), a Saragozza.
Weather is Go anche per il KSC!
Marilson
08-12-2006, 02:16
Edwards come è messa invece?
Marilson
08-12-2006, 02:17
azz mi sa che c'è qualcosa che non va col meteo..
EAFB non è un sito per il ritorno in caso di emergenza, solo il KSC e l'Europa (Istress e Saragozza).
0215 GMT (9:15 p.m. EST Thurs.)
Launch weather is "no go" right now due to low clouds at Kennedy Space Center. Final readiness polls of management and the launch team will be coming up shortly.
Marilson
08-12-2006, 02:21
qualcuno a bordo ha chiesto se procedere col T-5 oppure rimanere in attesa sul T-9 e hanno detto di continuare con lo stand by T-9
0222 GMT (9:22 p.m. EST Thurs.)
The final readiness poll by the NASA test director Jeff Spaulding confirms there are no technical issues being addressed. The Range is "no go" due to low clouds, however.
NASA launch director Mike Leinbach is conducting his poll.
0224 GMT (9:24 p.m. EST Thurs.)
Countdown clock will resume in two minutes.
Once the countdown picks up, the Ground Launch Sequencer will be initiated. The computer program is located in a console in the Firing Room of the Complex 39 Launch Control Center. The GLS is the master of events through liftoff. During the last 9 minutes of the countdown, the computer will monitor as many as a thousand different systems and measurements to ensure that they do not fall out of any pre-determine red-line limits. At T-minus 31 seconds, the GLS will hand off to the onboard computers of Discovery to complete their own automatic sequence of events through the final half minute of the countdown.
Marilson
08-12-2006, 02:25
scusami ma il problema delle nuvole? piuttosto il vento.. si vedevano le bandiere svolazzare per bene.. probabilmente il vento può infastidire il pitch and roll per il giusto angolo di uscita dall'atmosfera..
0226:48 GMT (9:26:48 p.m. EST Thurs.)
T-minus 9 minutes and counting! The Ground Launch Sequencer is now actively running this final phase of tonight's countdown to launch space shuttle Discovery. Weather is still "no go" at this time. The countdown will hold at T-minus 5 minutes if the weather does not clear. The low cloud ceiling is currently 5,300 feet. The limit is 6,000 feet.
0236 GMT (9:36 p.m. EST Thurs.)
SCRUB. Tonight's liftoff has been scrubbed due to low clouds over the launch site.
0238 GMT (9:38 p.m. EST Thurs.)
Friday night's weather outlook is not good. Forecasters predict a 90 percent chance of "no go" weather due to clouds, rain and high winds. NASA could opt to skip tomorrow and reschedule the mission for Saturday. But Saturday's weather is forecast 70 percent "no go."
SpaceFlightNow.com:
Discovery launch delayed to Saturday
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 7, 2006
After a nail-biting, down-to-the-wire countdown, launch director Mike Leinbach called off an attempt to launch the shuttle Discovery tonight on a critical space station mission because of low, thickening clouds over the Kennedy Space Center.
"We gave it our best shot and did not get clear and convincing evidence in the end that the cloud-ceiling rule would clear enough or us," Leinbach radioed the astronauts at 9:36 p.m. "So we're going to have declare a scrub at this time. Appreciate your support and we'll come up with a scrub-turnaround plan for you."
"We understand," commander Mark Polansky replied from Discovery's flight deck. "Thank the team for all their hard work, try not to be too disappointed. We will be ready to support the next time we get a chance."
With a 90 percent "no-go" forecast for Friday, NASA managers decided to recycle Discovery for a second launch attempt Saturday night at 8:47:34 p.m. The forecast Saturday is 70 percent "no-go," improving slightly Sunday and Monday. But the forecast does not turn positive until Tuesday, when meteorologists expect a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.
Launch tonight was targeted for 9:35:48 p.m., but low clouds caused concern throughout the final hours of the countdown, primarily because of their potential impact on a return-to-launch-site abort. Launch managers also were concerned about the weather at emergency runways in Spain and France.
As it turned out, the rain in Spain appeared within limits and conditions in Florida were deemed acceptable for an RTLS, should an emergency be declared shortly after launch. But during a hold at the T-minus nine-minute mark, weather officers decided a low deck of clouds over the space center was too thick, violating launch commit criteria.
Leinbach decided to take the countdown to the T-minus five-minute mark and hold there, hoping conditions would improve during the final five minutes of the 10-minute launch window. But it was not to be and he reluctantly cut off the countdown.
The shuttle's overall launch periord extends through Dec. 26. But NASA managers want to launch Discovery before Dec. 17 if at all possible to avoid having the shuttle in orbit on New Year's day. The shuttle's navigation software was not designed to fly over a year-end rollover and some clocks would consider Jan. 1 to be day 366 instead of the first day of the new year.
The astronauts can reset those systems, but it's a complex procedure in an already complicated flight. In addition, flight controllers don't want the shuttle to make the "YERO" transition unless it's docked to the space station at the time. That requirement would prevent a launch between Dec. 18 and 22.
Marilson
09-12-2006, 20:23
WASHINGTON - La Nasa ha dato luce verde al rifornimento del serbatoio esterno della navetta spaziale Discovery mantenendo aperta la finestra di lancio per stasera. Lo ha annunciato un portavoce dell'ente spaziale americano. Il lancio del Discovery' e' minacciato dal maltempo.
''Cercheremo di partire stasera'', ha detto il portavoce, Bruce Buckingham. Le ultime previsioni danno alla Nasa il 30 per cento di condizioni favorevoli alla partenza della navetta dal centro spaziale Kennedy in Florida. Nuvole e forti venti potrebbero indurre l'ente Usa a interrompere il conto alla rovescia.
ansa.it
The latest forecast update from the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in Houston's Mission Control is still predicting crosswinds and the chance of low clouds prohibiting launch tonight.
The outlook predicts scattered clouds at 3,500 feet, the chance of the low deck going broken and creating a ceiling at 3,000 feet, more clouds broken at 6,000 and broken at 25,000 feet, visibility of 7 miles and easterly winds from 060 degrees at 12 gusting to 18 knots. The limit is 15 knots.
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:07
sbaglio o e' arrivato il pulman con i piloti?
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:15
oh sveglia!! nessuno ci sta? >_<
Si chiama Astrovan! E poi non sono "piloti", ma "astronauti", o meglio... il comandante, il pilota, e i 4 specialisti di missione!
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:21
Quale pullman! Astrovan! E non sono "i piloti", ma gli "astronauti", o meglio... il comandante, il pilota, e i 4 specialisti di missione!
si ok :D
mi sentivo come la particella di Sodio :fagiano:
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:22
ma non dovevano pensionarlo il Discovery?
2215 GMT (5:15 p.m. EST)
Discovery's crew arrived at launch pad 39B at 5:15 p.m. The AstroVan came to a stop on the pad surface near the Fixed Service Structure tower elevator that will take the seven-person crew to the 195-foot level to begin boarding the shuttle.
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:24
per regolarsi, con i vari orari
http://www.qlock.com/time/gmaps?map=1
ma non dovevano pensionarlo il Discovery?
Veramente l'ultima missione del Discovery (OV-103) sarà l'STS-129 nel 2009. Il primo ad essere ritirato sarà l'Atlantis nel 2008 mentre l'ultimo ovviamente, Endeavour, che sta finendo ora il suo ultimo MMP (Major Modification Period).
Per il manifesto ufficiale vedere:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/manifest.html
dantes76
09-12-2006, 22:40
Veramente l'ultima missione del Discovery (OV-103) sarà l'STS-129 nel 2009. Il primo ad essere ritirato sarà l'Atlansi nel 2008 mentre l'ultimo ovviamente, Endeavour, che sta finendo ora il suo ultimo MMP (Major Modification Period).
Per il manifesto ufficiale vedere:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/manifest.html
TnX
Marilson
09-12-2006, 23:22
giofx si parte o no? vale la pena perdere un'altra nottata? :fagiano:
giofx si parte o no? vale la pena perdere un'altra nottata? :fagiano:
News direttamente dallo STA (Shuttle Training Aircraft) pilotato dall'astronauta Steve Lindsey:
STA (Steve Lindsey): "closest clouds 15 miles away"
CAPCOM: Great news. thanks Steve.
-
CAPCOM to STA Lindsey "pretty darn good night out there.
"Everything improving as you get to shore. Aren't any clouds as we approach shore.
-
STA asking for xenons at other end/15 for a test from there. Fun stuff. A little chilly...a little breezy. Pretty clear. Approaches both look good "Lights look good all the way down." - Lindsey
2323 GMT (6:23 p.m. EST)
The "go" was just given to close Discovery's crew module hatch for launch.
dantes76
09-12-2006, 23:33
Dalle carte meteo, sembrerebbe buona
2333 GMT (6:33 p.m. EST)
The shuttle's crew compartment hatch is confirmed to be closed and latched for flight
dantes76
09-12-2006, 23:35
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/east/latest_eastir.jpg
2343 GMT (6:43 p.m. EST)
The weather outlook has just taken a major swing in the positive direction. The latest forecast from weather officer Kathy Winters predicts only a 30 percent chance of violating the launch rules tonight. The change is mostly due to the optimism that winds won't be gusting high enough to break the crosswind limit.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1050434.png
dantes76
10-12-2006, 00:30
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1050434.png
in un altra inquadratura, si vede una fiamma? serve per vedere la direzione del vento?
Built-in hold a T-20 min.
in un altra inquadratura, si vede una fiamma? serve per vedere la direzione del vento?
no è l'eccesso di idrogeno che viene "bruciato". Ricordo che lo stack è in replenish-mode dopo che i due serbatori di LOX e LO2 sono stati riempiti.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1056688.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1054920.png
dantes76
10-12-2006, 00:40
no è l'eccesso di idrogeno che viene "bruciato". Ricordo che lo stack è in replenish-mode dopo che i due serbatori di LOX e LO2 sono stati riempiti.
perche l'idrogeno si espande con il calore, quello in piu' viene bruciato,
TnX
0032 GMT (7:32 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 20 minutes and holding. The countdown has paused for a 10-minute built-in hold. Launch is scheduled for 8:47 p.m. EST. Everything is going smoothly with the countdown and weather is still looking good. The clouds and crosswinds are not violating any rules currently.
The launch time forecast calls for scattered clouds at 4,000 feet, a broken deck at 20,000 and winds out of 050 degrees at 8 knot gusting to 14. That equates to a crosswind of just under 14 knots. The safety limit is 15 knots.
During this built-in hold, all computer programs in Firing Room 4 of the Complex 39 Launch Control Center will be verified to ensure that the proper programs are available for the countdown; the landing convoy status will be verified and the landing sites will be checked to support an abort landing during launch today; the Inertial Measurement Unit preflight alignment will be verified completed; and preparations are made to transition the orbiter onboard computers to Major Mode 101 upon coming out of the hold. This configures the computer memory to a terminal countdown configuration.
perche l'idrogeno si espande con il calore, quello in piu' viene bruciato,
TnX
più correttamente... il serbatoio è costantemente riempito per sostituire quello che è evaporato per il calore, e per far questo l'idrogeno viene pompato dal serbatoio del pad tramite condotte in pressione fino alla MLP (Mobile launch platform) e da qui tramite l'orbiter nell'ET. La pressione viene mantenuta regolando il flusso dell'idrogeno e quello in eccesso viene bruciato.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1063485.png
0042 GMT (7:42 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 20 minutes and counting. The countdown has resumed after a 10-minute hold. Clocks will tick down for the next 11 minutes to T-minus 9 minutes where the final planned hold is scheduled to occur. The hold length will be adjusted to synch up with today's preferred launch time of 8:47:35 p.m.
Discovery's onboard computers are now transitioning to the Major Mode-101 program, the primary ascent software. Also, engineers are dumping the Primary Avionics Software System (PASS) onboard computers. The data that is dumped from each of PASS computers is compared to verify that the proper software is loaded aboard for launch.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1065103.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1066874.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1067090.png
0050 GMT (7:50 p.m. EST Sat.)
Mission Control in Houston has loaded Discovery's onboard computers with the proper guidance parameters based on the projected launch time.
0053 GMT (7:53 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 9 minutes and holding. Countdown clocks have gone into the planned 45-minute, 35-second built-in hold. Today's launch remains set for 8:47:35 p.m. EST. Weather is still "go" at this time.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1069279.png
ECO Sensor test successful
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1072140.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1073434.png
0057 GMT (7:57 p.m. EST Sat.)
Chief NASA astronaut Seve Lindsey is flying the weather reconnaissance aircraft out over the Atlantic northeast of the pad to look at an area of clouds moving toward the launch site. Weather officials want Lindsey's observations on the cloud conditions that could be over KSC at launch time.
0112 GMT (8:12 p.m. EST Sat.)
Weather is still "go."
0117 GMT (8:17 p.m. EST Sat.)
Now 30 minutes from launch of Discovery. All remains quiet in Firing Room 4 of the Complex 39 Launch Control Center. No issues are being worked and weather is still acceptable for liftoff.
0126 GMT (8:26 p.m. EST Sat.)
Final readiness polls will be conducted over the next few minutes. Officials are still watching the winds, but all remains OK for now.
Next milestones:
08:38:34 p.m. Resume countdown (T-9 minutes)
08:40:04 p.m. Orbiter access arm retraction
08:42:34 p.m. Launch window opens
08:42:34 p.m. Hydraulic power system (APU) start
08:42:39 p.m. Terminate oxygen replenish
08:43:34 p.m. Purge sequence 4 hydraulic test
08:43:34 p.m. Inertial measurement units to inertial
08:43:39 p.m. Aerosurface profile
08:44:04 p.m. Main engine gimbal profile test
08:44:39 p.m. Oxygen tank pressurization
08:44:59 p.m. Fuel cells to internal reactants
08:45:04 p.m. Clear caution-and-warning memory
08:45:34 p.m. Crew closes visors
08:45:37 p.m. Hydrogen tank pressurization
08:46:44 p.m. Solid rocket booster joint heater deactivation
08:47:03 p.m. Shuttle computers take control of countdown (T-31 seconds)
08:47:13 p.m. Booster gimbal profile
08:47:27 p.m. Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds)
08:47:34 p.m. Launch
0133 GMT (8:33 p.m. EST Sat.)
The final readiness poll by the NASA test director Jeff Spaulding confirms there are no technical issues being addressed. The Range also report "go" on the weather.
0134 GMT (8:34 p.m. EST Sat.)
NASA launch director Mike Leinbach has conducted his poll and given approval to resume the countdown for launch!
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1094310.png
0136:35 GMT (8:36:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
Countdown clock will resume in two minutes.
Once the countdown picks up, the Ground Launch Sequencer will be initiated. The computer program is located in a console in the Firing Room of the Complex 39 Launch Control Center. The GLS is the master of events through liftoff. During the last 9 minutes of the countdown, the computer will monitor as many as a thousand different systems and measurements to ensure that they do not fall out of any pre-determine red-line limits. At T-minus 31 seconds, the GLS will hand off to the onboard computers of Discovery to complete their own automatic sequence of events through the final half minute of the countdown.
0138:35 GMT (8:38:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 9 minutes and counting! The Ground Launch Sequencer is now actively running this final phase of tonight's countdown to launch space shuttle Discovery.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1097641.png
0142:35 GMT (8:42:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 5 minutes. The "go" has been given for for Auxiliary Power Unit start. Pilot Bill Oefelein is now flipping three switches in Discovery's cockpit to start each of the three APU's. The units, located in the aft compartment of Discovery, provide the pressure needed to power the hydraulic systems of the shuttle. The units will be used during the launch and landing phases of the mission for such events as moving the orbiter's aerosurfaces, gimbaling the main engine nozzles and deploying the landing gear.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1100825.png
0147:04 GMT (8:47:04 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 31 seconds. AUTO SEQUENCE START! The handoff has occurred from the Ground Launch Sequencer to the space shuttle. Discovery's computers now controlling.
In the next few seconds, the solid rocket booster hydraulic steering system will be started, the orbiter's body flap and speed brake moved to their launch positions, the firing chain armed. Main engine ignition begins at T-minus 6.6 seconds.
0146:35 GMT (8:46:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 1 minute. Computers are verifying that the main engines are ready for ignition. Sound suppression water system is armed. The system will activate at T-minus 16 seconds to suppress the sound produced at launch. And the residual hydrogen burn ignitors are armed. They will be fired at T-minus 10 seconds to burn off hydrogen gas from beneath the main engine nozzles.
Shortly, the external tank strut heaters will be turned off; Discovery will transition to internal power; the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen outboard fill and drain valves will be closed; the payload bay vent doors will be positioned for the launch; and the gaseous oxygen vent arm will be verified fully retracted.
0145:35 GMT (8:45:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 2 minutes. The astronauts are being instructed to close and lock the visors on their launch and entry helmets.
At T-minus 1 minute, 57 seconds the replenishment to the flight load of liquid hydrogen in the external tank will be terminated and tank pressurization will begin.
0145:05 GMT (8:45:05 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 2 minutes, 30 seconds. The external tank liquid oxygen vent valve has been closed and pressurization of the LOX tank has started.
Discovery's power-producing fuel cells are transfering to internal reactants. The units will begin providing all electricity for the mission beginning at T-50 seconds.
And pilot Bill Oefelein has been asked to clear the caution and warning memory system aboard Discovery. He will verify no unexpected errors in the system.
In the next few seconds, the gaseous oxygen vent hood will be removed from atop the external tank. Verification that the swing arm is fully retracted will be made by the ground launch sequencer at the T-minus 37 second mark.
0144:35 GMT (8:44:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T-minus 3 minutes. Orbiter steering check is now complete; the main engine nozzles are in their start positions.
0147:35 GMT (8:47:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
LIFTOFF! Liftoff of Discovery on a mission to prepare the space station to power the pursuits of international science. And the shuttle has cleared the tower!
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1101961.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1101987.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1102015.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1102080.png
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1102090.png
0150 GMT (8:50 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 3 minutes. The twin Orbital Maneuvering System engines on the ship's tail are burning for an extra boost in thrust. Discovery's main engines continue to fire, guzzling a half-ton of propellant per second.
0149 GMT (8:49 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 2 minutes, 20 seconds. Guidance is converging as programmed. Discovery's engine nozzles are swiveling to steer the ship toward a precise point for main engine cutoff about six minutes from now.
0149 GMT (8:49 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 2 minutes, 7 seconds. A good separation of the twin solid rocket boosters has occurred. The shuttle continues its nighttime streak toward space on the power generated by the three liquid-fueled main engines.
0149 GMT (8:49 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 90 seconds. A smooth ride for Discovery and the seven astronauts. Commander Mark Polansky, pilot Bill Oefelein, flight engineer Bob Curbeam and Nick Patrick are seated on the flight deck, with mission specialists Christer Fuglesang, Joan Higginbotham and Sunita Williams down on the middeck.
0148 GMT (8:48 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 80 seconds. Discovery's engines have revved back to full throttle. Mission Control has given the "go" at throttle up call.
0148:35 GMT (8:48:35 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 60 seconds. One minute into the flight. The main engines and twin solid rocket boosters are providing a dazzling light show as they combine to produce 7 million pounds of thrust. Discovery is making the first night shuttle launch in four years.
0148 GMT (8:48 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 35 seconds. Discovery's three main engines are throttling down to reduce the aerodynamic stresses on the vehicle as it powers through the dense lower atmosphere.
0148 GMT (8:48 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 25 seconds. The shuttle has maneuvered to the proper heading for a 51.6 degree inclination orbit. Discovery is destined for a Monday afternoon linkup with the International Space Station.
0147:50 GMT (8:47:50 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 15 seconds. Discovery now rolling on course for its flight up the eastern seaboard of the United States.
0151 GMT (8:51 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 4 minutes. Negative return. The shuttle is traveling too fast and is too far downrange so it can no longer return to the launch site in the event of a main engine problem.
0152 GMT (8:52 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 4 minutes, 45 seconds. Discovery is at an altitude of 63 miles, traveling at 6,500 mph.
http://75.126.85.10/STS116/vlcsnap-1102271.png
0156 GMT (8:56 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 8 minutes, 31 seconds. MECO! Confirmation that Discovery's main engines have cutoff as planned, completing the powered phase of the launch.
CarloR1t
10-12-2006, 02:02
Bello mi sono ricollegato per vederlo, now goodnight crew... :ronf:
0201 GMT (9:01 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 14 minutes. The "go" has been given to the crew for Auxiliary Power Unit shutdown as planned.
0206 GMT (9:06 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 19 minutes. The two flapper doors on the belly of Discovery are being swung closed to shield the umbilicals that had connected to the external fuel tank.
0207 GMT (9:07 p.m. EST Sat.)
T+plus 20 minutes. No problems were reported during Discovery's climb to orbit tonight.
Da SpaceFlightNow.com (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061209launch):
Discovery dazzles with nighttime ascent to space
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 9, 2006
Running two days late, the shuttle Discovery thundered into orbit tonight, lighting up the night sky for hundreds of miles around as NASA kicked off a critical flight to conduct electronic bypass surgery on the international space station.
In the space agency's first night launch since 2002, Discovery's huge solid-fuel booster flashed to life at 8:47:35 p.m., instantly pushing the fuel-laden 4.5-million-pound spacecraft skyward atop 500-foot tongues of sky-lighting fire.
Accelerating through 140 mph in just 10 seconds - straight up - Discovery wheeled about its long axis and arced away over the Atlantic Ocean, blazing through the dark sky on a trajectory up the East Coast of the United States.
The 5,000-degree flame from its twin-solid fuel boosters was visible for hundreds of miles around, putting on a spectacular show. Despite earlier concern about high winds and possible low clouds, conditions improved as launch time approached and it was clear sailing for Discovery.
Two minutes and five seconds after liftoff, the two boosters were jettisoned, their combined 2.6 million pounds of solid propellant exhausted, and Discovery continued its ascent on the power of three hydrogen-fueled main engines.
With the boosters gone, live television views from a camera mounted on Discovery's external fuel tank became too dim to spot any debris possibly falling from the tank. But the view was stunning as the exhaust from the main engines interacted with the surrounding atmosphere to create a eerie, never-before-seen plume around the back of the vehicle.
No obvious signs of foam shedding could be seen during the most dangerous phase of flight, the first minute and 40 seconds or so when air density is high enough to result in high impact velocities.
Eight-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the shuttle slipped into its planned preliminary orbit, the dimming plume flaring as maneuvering jets pushed the orbiter away from the tank.
If all goes well, commander Mark Polansky will guide Discovery to a docking with the space station around 4:48 p.m. Monday. Spacewalks are scheduled Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to re-wire the outpost to take advantage of new solar arrays installed in September.
"It probably is the most complex shuttle mission we've had yet," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said in an interview with CBS News.
Joining Polansky aboard Discovery are pilot William Oefelein, flight engineer Bob Curbeam, Nicholas Patrick, Joan Higginbotham, Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang and Sunita "Sunni" Williams. Williams will remain behind on the space station when Discovery departs and German astronaut Thomas Reiter, launched to the lab complex in July, will come home in her place.
"We have a message for the crew of Discovery," station skipper Mike Lopez-Alegria radioed Houston after the shuttle reached orbit. "Congratulations. ... It's a wonderful achievement. We're going to turn our porch light on so they can find us."
Space station-bound shuttles must take off at roughtly the moment Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the lab's orbit. That moment moves 23 minutes earlier per day, resulting in alternating periods of lighted and nighttime launch opportunities.
NASA suspended night launchings in the wake of the Feb. 1, 2003, Columbia disaster to ensure good lighting, on the ground and in orbit, for photo documentation of the shuttle's external tank. The goal was to monitor the performance of the tank's foam insulation and to spot any debris impacts on the shuttle's heat shield.
But ruling out night launchings severely restricted NASA's launch opportunities. After two successful daylight flights in July and September, NASA managers concluded the redesigned tank was performing well and that the risk of a night launch was justified by the need to meet the Bush administration's 2010 deadline for finishing the station and retiring the shuttle.
As it turned out, the light from Discovery 's booster plumes provided enough illumination for at least some of NASA's launch cameras. Radars were positioned along the shuttle's ground track to look for signs of debris and a WB-57 jet flying off shore to one side of the shuttle's flight path photographed the orbiter using a powerful telescope with infrared and optical cameras.
But launch photography is not really required to determine if the current mission is at risk. An exhaustive orbital inspection will spot any signs of damage in greater detail than is possible with ground-based instruments. The major downside to a night launch is possibly not spotting a near miss that might pose a threat to the next mission.
"We're not relying on those ascent-based observations for the safety of that particular flight," said shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale. "We're relying on the inspection of the heat shield, which we do in excruciating detail on orbit now to make sure they're safe to come back."
With two successful flights going into Discovery's launch campaign, Hale said, "we are as confident as we are likely to get that it's safe to return to the kind of operations that we simply must adopt if we're going to complete the international space station by 2010."
No obvious problems were seen during this evening's climb to space, but flight controllers won't know for sure how the shuttle's heat shield fared until a detailed inspection by the astronauts on Sunday. Additional inspections will be carried out by the station's crew during final approach prior to docking Monday afternoon.
Discovery's mission is considered one of the most challenging flights in space history.
Station construction has now reached the point where an interim power system, designed to support the station during its initial assembly, needs to be phased out. With the installation of new solar arrays in September, NASA is finally ready to activate the lab's permanent power grid, a major step that sets the stage for attachment of European and Japanese research modules.
But in order to do that, the Discovery astronauts and station crew must first retract one wing of the older solar arrays providing interim electricity to the U.S. segment of the station. If that goes well - and no one knows whether the fragile array wing will, in fact, retract smoothly - commands will be sent to begin slowly rotating the new set of arrays installed in September.
Flight controllers then will power down the lab's major circuits, two at a time, while spacewalking astronauts unplug and re-plug electrical cables into different sockets.
Precisely timed computer scripts will set electro-mechanical switches to begin routing power from the new arrays and the remaining older array wing through four big circuit control boxes called main bus switching units, or MBSUs, mounted in the center of the station's main solar power truss. The MBSUs, in turn, will send array power to a host of transformers, circuit breakers and other components to provide precisely regulated 124-volt DC power to the station's myriad systems.
But the MBSUs will begin heating up as soon as the power begins flowing. In a high-stakes race against the clock, the astronauts and flight controllers must quickly activate powerful pumps to push ammonia coolant through cold plates and radiators to keep the MBSUs and other components from overheating.
"This is pretty much your classic chicken-or-egg scenario here," said Paul Hill, mission operations manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "You have to have active cooling to the switch boxes (main bus switching units, or MBSUs) in order to route power through them. You have to have power flowing through the MBSUs in order to power the cooling equipment."
It will take two virtually identical spacewalks - and hundreds of commands and cable switches - to reconfigure the station's four major circuits. There is little margin or error and a fair amount of uncertainty. While the MBSUs have at least been tested in space to confirm electrical continuity, the ammonia coolant system has never been activated or tested in space.
"We have these big boxes in the middle of the space station, big switch boxes," Hill said of the MBSUs. "You've got four pairs of solar arrays (when the station is complete) and you've got all these finger-thick copper wires that run from the solar arrays to the middle of the truss. Those are the boxes that, for an assembly-complete station, you want all your power flowing from and then going down to our converters that then flow power to individual pieces of equipment.
"In order to reconfigure the electrical system and the cooling system so we have the permanent cooling system up and we're flowing all power through these main switching boxes, we've got to power off a hell of a lot of equipment so we can safe those individual copper lines, disconnect them and reconnect them to where we want them. That will be a case where we'll have to power off almost all the U.S. segment one way or the other throughout that whole process."
Should any significant problems develop - an ammonia leak, an electrical glitch, a computer commanding issue - that might prevent the activation of a cooling system, the astronauts could be forced to quickly switch back to the interim power system, cutting of the flow of electricity to the MBSUs while engineers in Houston consider alternatives.
"What makes this mission singularly unique is the choreography between what we're doing in orbit and what the ground is doing because of the amazing amount of ground commanding to go ahead and power down and re-power the ISS electrical system while we're out there doing spacewalks," Polansky said in an interview.
"So yeah, we hold our breath like everybody else while the ground sends the commands and then wait to find out how it's going to work."
Said Curbeam, the lead spacewalker on the mission: "It is very complicated. The thing I think is kind of cool about it is, we have these three spacewalks, the second two, the big player in them both is mission control. ... The pressure is on those guys.
"While they have to be very slow and deliberate about how they do it, they can't be too slow because the clock's ticking on us. There's got to be a point where they say OK, it's going to be fine, you guys press on or OK, we have to back out of it and go back to (interim) power and we have to undo everything we did and then talk about what we're going to do after that."
In that case, the pressure will quickly switch back to the astronauts.
"Our tasks are relatively straight forward as long as you don't run into any of the contingencies," he said. "And that's the big deal. We probably train for contingencies more than most crews because we know that's where the devil is."
Grazie per la cronaca Gio ;)
Hai mica un link al video che domani me lo guardo (rigorosamente mentre sono al lavoro :D )?
Grazie per la cronaca Gio ;)
Hai mica un link al video che domani me lo guardo (rigorosamente mentre sono al lavoro :D )?
Qui li trovi sempre velocemente:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1235
Sto aspettando che Philip metta quelli in DivX sul suo sito, poi non rimane che scaricarsi dal mulo quelli in alta definizione (3 GB)... :)
Qui li trovi sempre velocemente:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1235
Sto aspettando che Philip metta quelli in DivX sul suo sito, poi non rimane che scaricarsi dal mulo quelli in alta definizione (3 GB)... :)
Alla faccia, 3Gb... :eek:
Grazie per il link ;)
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061210ascentvideo/
No major debris events seen in ascent video
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 10, 2006
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061210ascentvideo/externaltankcam.jpg
Discovery separates from the external fuel tank following launch Saturday night. This still image was taken from video downlinked by a camera on the tank. Credit: NASA
Preliminary analysis of ascent video and radar indicate the shuttle Discovery's external tank performed well and that no major debris events occurred that might have damaged the orbiter's fragile heat shield. While it will take several more days to complete the assessment, incorporating crew inspections today and more planned for Monday, NASA managers said they were pleased with Discovery's performance so far.
"All in all it's going really well," said John Shannon, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "All the reports that came in were that we had a very typical ascent, there were no surprises as of yet. We're just waiting for the inspection data to come down. We'll take a look at that and work it into the mission as appropriate."
Discovery's crew used a long sensor boom today to inspect the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels and the space station crew will photograph the heat shield tiles on the ship's belly during final approach before docking Monday afternoon. The linkup currently is targeted for 5:06 p.m.
Video of the heat shield shot by cameras mounted in the shuttle's twin solid-fuel boosters will be assessed after the big rockets are towed back to shore.
For Discovery's launching, one ship was stationed to the north along the shuttle's ground track while the other was positioned to the south, closer to shore. During recovery operations, a man on the southern ship was injured, interrupting booster recovery operations.
"We did not put the southernmost ship where we typically do, it was not out at the recovery zone," Shannon said. "We had the northern ship out there, the southern ship was closer to the coast so we could get a good Doppler comparison between the two radars of anything coming off the stack.
"The southern ship went out with radar technicians and the plan all along was after the launch for it to come back to port, let the radar technicians off, on load some guys for the retrieval of the boosters and then steam overnight to the recovery zone. They got out there and there was an accident, I'm not going to get into exactly what happened, it's not life threatening, but a guy got hurt out there during the frustrum recovery.
"They halted recovery operations and started coming back and we got a Coast Guard helicopter to go out and pick him up and take him to the hospital and they're back on station to do the recovery starting tomorrow morning. So it's probably going to put our, what we call the open assessment of the solid rocket boosters, down by a day."
One of the ship-borne radars suffered a malfunction and was unable to collect data. Other radars noted two possible debris events during launch, both occurring well after the first minute and 35 seconds or so of flight when atmospheric density is high enough to result in high impact velocities.
Two bits of debris, presumably ice, could be seen floating away as the shuttle separated from the external tank. But nothing significant was seen actually striking the spacecraft.
Accelerometers mounted behind the wing leading edge panels detected six "events" during launch, four on the left wing and two on the right. All were in the 1.2- to 1.3-G range, just slightly above the 1-G limit that requires additional analysis.
Shannon said engineers aren't sure what might have triggered the readings, which are very similar to what was observed during the first three post-Columbia missions. It may be the result of the wing leading edge panels and support hardware settling, or snapping into place under the stress of launch, or it could be the result of very small bits of debris.
In any case, the events were at least 10 times weaker than the force needed to cause actual damage to the panels.
"The team sees nothing of concern at this time," Shannon said. "Of course, it was a dark launch at night, so we did not have all of the capability that we have enjoyed on STS-114, 121 and 115. The long-range cameras, though, showed typical performance. We could see a few very small pieces of foam or ice come off, none impacted the orbiter. The pad cameras showed very good performance.
"The ET feedline camera was interesting. We were able to get enough reflected lighting from the solid rocket boosters and the main engines to be able to see a few small pieces of what looked like foam that were highlighted against that plume. They were all well after the time of concern and it was very typical of what we've seen in past flights."
Overall, Shannon said, the team was pleasantly surprised by how well the cameras performed during the first night launching since November 2002.
"The long-range tracking cameras showed us a lot of detail on the lower part of the stack," he said, referring to the shuttle, its tank and boosters. "We're also able to see better at night when any piece of foam comes off of the stack if it goes into the main engine plume, it really brightens that plume up, you see a little streak in there and you can see it a lot better at night.
"As well, at external tank separation when the attitude control thrusters fired, it was bright as it could be and the imagery team has already taken snapshots of that data and made a preliminary assessment of the underside of the vehicle and said they don't see anything that's unexpected. So I was very encouraged by what we saw."
Photographing the tank after separation with a camera mounted in the shuttle's belly was not considered an option for Discovery's flight because separation occurred in orbital darkness.
"We didn't do it because we thought it was going to be dark," Shannon said. "But based on the results we saw from the attitude control firings, I think we will go ahead and do that (in the future) and just use that lighting from those jet firings to light the tank up for us."
Asked if the initial results gave him confidence in launching shuttles at night, Shannon said "we were confident before we stepped into this flight with night launch."
"We're very confident the vehicle is going to be safe to fly and we're also confident we have sufficient data through the radars and the imagery we did get to show we didn't have anything unexpected happen on the stack," he said. "As I said, it was as we expected."
The only other issues under discussion are problems with a controller used by one of the shuttle's cooling systems and a glitch in an automated system used to unlatch the ship's robot arm from whatever it is locked onto. Additional troubleshooting is planned for the controller issue but it is not expected to impact the mission. As for the robot arm, the astronauts will use a manual system to unlatch the snare mechanism as required. Again, no mission impact is expected.
1929 GMT (2:29 p.m. EST)
TI burn. With about 40,000 feet separating Discovery and the space station, the shuttle has performed the Terminal Initiation maneuvering burn to begin the final phase of this afternoon's rendezvous. The 11-second firing by one of Discovery's OMS engines changed the shuttle's speed by 5.8 mph.
The TI burn puts the shuttle on a trajectory to directly intercept the orbiting station over the next orbit and a half. This burn is the latest in a series of maneuvers performed by Discovery during its two days of chasing the station since launch Saturday.
Docking is set for 5:06 p.m. EST.
2212 GMT (5:12 p.m. EST)
CONTACT AND CAPTURE! Discovery has arrived at the International Space Station to install the Port 5 truss spacer, re-wire the outpost's power system and exchange the third member of the Expedition 14 resident crew.
The relative motions of the shuttle and station will be allowed to damp out over the next few minutes by the spring-loaded docking system. Later, the hooks and latches will be closed to firmly join the two craft and Discovery's Orbiter Docking System docking ring will be retracted to form a tight seal.
The opening of hatches between the station and shuttle is expected in about two hours. That will be followed by a welcoming ceremony and safety briefing. Then the joint crews will get down to business and use the shuttle robot arm to hoist the truss out of Discovery's payload bay for handoff to the station's arm.
2355 GMT (6:55 p.m. EST)
HATCHES OPEN. The hatchway between the space shuttle Discovery and space station were opened at 6:54 p.m. EST. The shuttle crew is being welcomed aboard the outpost with the ringing of the station's bell.
marcozambi
12-12-2006, 11:35
Qui li trovi sempre velocemente:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1235
Sto aspettando che Philip metta quelli in DivX sul suo sito, poi non rimane che scaricarsi dal mulo quelli in alta definizione (3 GB)... :)
Qualcosa ci sarebbe anche qui, previa registrazione gratuita :D :D
http://www.forumastronautico.it/downloads.php
Da SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061210ascentvideo/
No major debris events seen in ascent video
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 10, 2006
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061210ascentvideo/externaltankcam.jpg
[...]
e' fantastico come siano riusciti a ottenere dei video cosi' dettagliati nonostante il lancio notturno :eek:
Truss spacer segment added to station during spacewalk
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 12, 2006
Astronauts Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang re-entered the space station's Quest airlock module, sealed the hatch and began repressurizing at 10:07 p.m. to successfully close out the first of three spacewalks planned for the shuttle Discovery's mission.
The six-hour 36-minute excursion, the 74th devoted to station assembly and maintenance, pushes total space station EVA time to 450 hours and 50 minutes since construction began in 1998.
Including three spacewalks during a 2001 station visit, Curbeam has now logged 26 hours and 25 minutes of EVA time over four spacewalks, moving him to 21st on the list of most experienced spacewalkers. Tonight's outing was the first for Fuglesang, Sweden's first astronaut.
The primary goal of the spacewalk was to bolt a new solar array truss segment to the left end of the station's main power beam. The astronauts also repositioned a grapple fixture and replaced a faulty television camera on the opposite end of the truss. Finally, they performed a few minor "get ahead" tasks, including electrical connections between P5 and the P4 solar array segment and tests of a lock assembly, to save time for future assembly crews.
Before ending the spacewalk, Curbeam radioed congratulations to John Mather, a NASA astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who shared this year's Nobel Prize in physics for his work studying the remnant heat left over from the big bang birth of the universe.
"I just want to say congratulations to all the Nobel Prize winners this year and especially to John Mather of the Goddard space center," Curbeam said. "We're proud of you."
"Thanks to both of you for those very gracious words," astronaut Stephen Robinson radioed from mission control. "And from here on the ground, we'd like to extend our congrtatulations for a 100 percent successful first EVA. It was a real pleasure for us to watch it."
One concern going into today's spacewalk was tight clearance between the P5 spacer and a device called a sequential shunt unit, or SSU, on the P4 segment. The P4 arrays are not yet providing power to the station and most of the electricity being generated is being routed back into the solar cells by the SSU to be dissipated as heat.
Sunita Williams and Joan Higginbotham, operating the station's robot arm from inside the Destiny laboratory module, were relying on verbal guidance from the spacewalkers to guide P5 into position with just two inches or so of clearance.
"Ah, that's beautiful," Fuglesang said as P5 inched into position.
"Yes, it is," Curbeam agreed.
A few moments later, two guidance pins on Curbeam's side of the structure were in position while Fuglesang's were still slightly out of alignment. The arm operators then ran a procedure to use a bit more force to get all four guidance pins properly seated.
"We don't want to scream on the loops, but we're really happy," Higginbotham radioed when the last pin was in place.
"You're not the only one," Curbeam said.
The spacewalkers tightened the four bolts, attached electrical grounding straps and a wireless communications system connector to complete P5's attachment.
While the spacewalk was underway NASA's Mission Management Team met and decided against ordering any additional heat shield inspections by the shuttle Discovery's crew.
Earlier today, image analysts and engineers completed an assessment of post-launch heat shield inspection video and other data, along with an impromptu inspection late Monday to check the health of Discovery's left wing leading edge panels. Data from a sensor indicated a possible low-energy micrometeoroid hit on the outboard section of the leading edge earlier Monday.
In addition, photography by the station crew during Discovery's final approach to the outpost earlier Monday revealed some tile dings near an umbilical door in the shuttle's belly. But the MMT decided the damage was minimal and not a threat to the shuttle during re-entry.
As such, no additional "focused" inspections will be required Wednesday. The astronauts will, however, carry out a final heat shield inspection after leaving the station next week, as originally planned, to check for any signs of damage since the initial inspection was completed.
"Based on all the imagery gathered so far, no focused inspection is required," astronaut Kevin Ford radioed Discovery today during the first of three planned space station assembly spacewalks. "And the TPS (thermal protection system) is not suspect."
"Well that's outstanding news!" said shuttle skipper Mark Polansky. "I read the MMT summary and saw some of the pictures, so it sounds like you guys have obviously done your usual, thorough analysis and we're happy to hear we can go on with the normal timeline tomorrow."
"Good news for us, too," Ford said. "Hated to bother you during the EVA but thought you might be interested in that."
"I'd be really interested in that," Polansky said. "And then my understanding from that is that with regards to the wing leading edge system, everything else, we'll just kind of use late inspection as a confirmation or just a chance to go ahead and see if there were any problems we might have missed."
"That's absolutely right, that's the plan," Ford said.
"OK, well that's great," Polansky replied. "That'll give us a great start tomorrow for the solar array retract and we do have some tremendous views out the window to enhance that. So hopefully, that'll work according to the plan."
He was referring to the planned retraction of one side of the P6 solar arrays that have been providing power to the U.S. segment during the initial assembly of the space station. During two spacewalks Thursday and Saturday, the astronauts will switch the station over to its permanent power system. But first, the crew must successfully retract the P6-4B array. That's the crew's major objective Wednesday.
Station solar wing retraction aborted
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 13, 2006
In a make-or-break first step in an ambitious mission to re-wire the international space station, the Discovery astronauts today began retracting a huge solar array to clear the way for a complicated electrical upgrade. But the venetian blind-like blankets on one side developed kinks and folds that forced the astronauts to abort the procedure.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061213wingretract/arraybow.jpg
Solar wing retraction was stopped when the crew saw the blanket not folding properly. Credit: NASA TV
Not sure how the array will behave after being fully extended for six years, the astronauts sent commands to retract it just a few feet before a photo survey to assess it's health.
"Houston, Discovery on the big loop," astronaut Sunita Williams called down to mission control in Houston. "Going to retract... ready, ready, now." A few seconds later, she reported "one bay is in... two bays in... three bays, hitting the abort button now."
After stopping the retraction, the astronauts inspected the complex collapsible mast and the folding blankets that make up the P6-4B solar wing to make sure all the linkages in the mast were in good shape and that the solar blankets were folding as expected.
The P6-4B solar array features two solar blankets to either side of a central mast that fold up like the slats in venetian blinds. The open-framework mast extends 31 40-inch bays and is designed to collapse from the base as a motor pulls the moveable linkages down into a storage canister.
Television views from space showed a slight kink in a crease between to slats of the blanket at one end that appeared to be folding in the wrong direction.
"OK, Terry, the only thing that I see ... is if you look at the zenith most array and from the blanket box you count maybe one, two, three folds, right there in the middle, it kind of looks like it's popped out a little opposite of the way it's going to fold," commander Mark Polansky radioed Houston. "I don't think it's a problem. ... if you want to look further, let me know."
The astronauts continued a detailed photo survey while flight controllers assessed the health of the system.
"So far, it looks great," astronaut Terry Virts radioed a few minutes later from mission control. "We have a small change to the plan. We're going to ask you to retract two more bays and while you do that, keep one of the cameras pointed at that area of interest. We think it's not going to be a problem, we think it's going to retrtact fine. We just want to verify that."
Williams then sent commands to continue the retraction, stopping after two more bays of the mast collapsed into its canister.
"That's four bays... five bays, hitting the abort button now," Williams reported.
Video showed generally smooth folding in the body of the array, but slats toward the bottom, where the mast retracts into its storage canister, appeared misaligned and not folding smoothly. Engineers did not appear overly concerned, but they wanted to be sure they understood the situation before proceeding.
The array must be retracted at least 40 percent to permit a newly installed set of arrays - P4 - on the left end of the station's main power truss to rotate as required to track the sun. The flight plan calls for that rotation to begin later today, a requirement before the astronauts can stage a spacewalk Thursday to switch the station from it's temporary to its permanent power system.
After discussing the situation, flight controllers gave the astronauts permission to continue the retraction to the point where just two bays extended from the storage canister. The original plan called for retracting all the way to one bay, but engineers decided to double that to provide additional safety margin.
"Ready, ready, now," Williams radioed at 2:05 p.m. Moments later, after three or four more bays retracted, she aborted the procedure.
Video showed major kinking in the aft blanket toward its base, raising questions about whether or not the blanket would, in fact, fold up.
"The part on the forward array cleared itself almost immediately," Polansky reported, referring to one of the two blankets. "On the aft array, however, there was a lot of oscillation going on.
"It looked a couple of times like it was going to fold correctly, but then it started kind of bowing out in a nadir direction and we just got uncomfortable."
Flight controllers told the astronauts to hold off any additional retraction while engineers assess the situation. Polansky suggested re-extending the blankets and then trying another retraction.
"OK, thanks for the words," Virts replied. "The options you were just talking about are exactly what we're talking about on the ground."
"I mean, the best analogy I can give is ... it's kind of like folding a map up," Polansky said. "You have the fold in the paper and if you start folding it and the fold's going the wrong way, you try a little bit but you get to the point where it bows out and there's nothing you can do but pop it back in place or unfold it and try again."
Il giorno della verità! Tutto il futuro del programma ISS dipende dalla corretta richiusura dell'array del segmento P6, sennò addio riconfigurazione elettrica della stazione!
SARJ attivato! Il segmento P3/P4 sta ruotando!
:yeah:
0100 GMT (8:00 p.m. EST)
Rotation of the Port 4 solar arrays, delivered to the station in September, is underway now as the flight controllers test the new rotary joint that will keep the arrays pointed at the sun as the station orbits.
The partial retraction of the P6 wing tonight has given enough clearance for the P4 rotation to begin.
Philip Sloss di NASASpaceFlight.com:
Another team going to go off and evaluate plans for EVA support of completing retraction of the P6 wing; it would be no earlier than EVA-3, but could be an EVA-4 on this mission or a stage EVA (i.e., between ISS-12A.1 and 13A).
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061213wingretract/arraybow.jpg
Solar wing retraction was stopped when the crew saw the blanket not folding properly. Credit: NASA TV
Alla faccia... ma dopo questo accartocciamento avranno perso un bel po' di efficienza in quei pannelli, le celle non sono esattamente "elastiche" (qui in laboratorio si spezzano solo a saldarle :fagiano: ).
Alla faccia... ma dopo questo accartocciamento avranno perso un bel po' di efficienza in quei pannelli, le celle non sono esattamente "elastiche" (qui in laboratorio si spezzano solo a saldarle :fagiano: ).
Ora non ho trovato i dati esatti dello spessore delle celle, ma mi pare di ricordare che si aggiri nell'ordine di pochi millimetri... questi i dettagli:
Each of the Solar Array Wings are 34 m (112 ft) long by 12 m (39 ft) wide, and are capable of generating nearly 32.8 kW of DC power.[2] They are split into two photovoltaic blankets, with the deployment mast in between. Each blanket has 16,400 silicon photovoltaic cells, grouped into 82 active panels, each consisting of 200 cells, and each cell is 8 cm² with 4,100 diodes.
The photovoltaic cells are grouped into 82 active panels each consisting of 200 cells connected in series. The active panels are wired in sets of two, providing a total of 41 independent circuits, or strings, per blanket.
Astronauts gear up for Thursday spacewalk
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 13, 2006
Space station flight controllers, faced with an unruly solar panel and an increasingly tight schedule, put array troubleshooting on hold late today and pressed ahead with work to ready the lab complex for a critical re-wiring spacewalk Thursday.
In a first for the orbital outpost, flight controllers fired up a massive gear-driven joint on the left side of the station's main solar power truss to begin slowly rotating a new set of arrays like a giant paddle wheel, allowing the panels to track the sun as the station circled the globe.
Engineers then began work to pressurize one of two untried cooling systems in the main truss. If all goes well, a massive pump will begin active cooling Thursday during a spacewalk by Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang to activate one of the station's two main electrical circuits.
Up until now, the U.S. segment of the station has drawn power from an interim system that provided electricity during the initial stages of construction. NASA now needs to switch the station over to its permanent power system to provide the electricity needed by current and future research modules.
The first step in that process was to retract the left wing of the P6 solar array, the one providing interim power, to clear the way for newly installed arrays on the left side of the main truss to begin rotating as required.
But after more than six-and-a-half hours and repeated attempts to coax the P6 array's two left-side solar blankets to fold up smoothly like pleated window shades, the astronauts were only able to retract the central mast about half way, or 17 of 31 40-inch bays.
Some 45 commands were sent to retract and extend the mast in stop-and-start fashion, but the blankets would not fold neatly. Rather than spend any more time on additional cycles, lead flight director John Curry decided to put troubleshooting on hold and to press ahead instead with preparations for Thursday's long-planned spacewalk.
While not an ideal situation, P6 was retracted enough to provide more than 10 feet of clearance between the end of the stalled array wing and the newly installed P4 arrays. That cleared the way for flight controllers to power up the solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, to begin rotating the new arrays.
Engineers then began work to pressurize one of two coolant loops on the main power truss with ammonia. Cooling is required to keep big electrical switching units and transformers in the power system from overheating once activated Thursday and drawing power from the P4 arrays and the still-extended right wing of P6.
Another spacewalk is planned Saturday, by Curbeam and new station crew member Sunita "Suni" Williams, to wire in the station's other main circuit and to activate a second ammonia coolant loop.
"The big picture is very simple," astronaut Stephen Robinson radioed the astronauts from Houston. "Flight day 6 (Thursday) will be executed as planned, including EVA-2. We've been practicing a long time, we're ready to do it exactly as written. The solar array is obviously safe for SARJ rotation because it's rotating. The port (cooling system radiator) is on its way to minus 30 degrees and after that, we'll start filling the ETCS (external thermal control system) loops.
"In the background, we're going to call up Team 4 to assemble an EVA plan that would aid in solar array retraction. Now this would be done no earlier than EVA-3 but it could also be EVA-4 or a stage EVA (by the station astronauts). That's what Team 4 will help us work out."
Robinson said even though P6 is not fully retracted, "we are go to execute the rest of the mission as planned, that includes undocking, the Progress (supply ship) docking coming up in a few weeks. So we're actually in a very good config. We appreciate all your hard work today and we're looking forward to a day tomorrow that should be unlike no other on space station."
"We're trying to figure out what 'unlike no other' means," quipped station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria. "In the meantime, we copy everything else you said and we look forward to working with you guys, Team 4's plan. I'm sure that whatever it is we'll be ready to handle it and we'll just stand by for further words."
"Roger that," Robinson replied. "We'll certainly let you know. ... Thanks again for all the hard work on the solar array today."
"Thanks, Steve, we appreciate you taking our participation into account and you know, we all tried as much up here as you guys did on the ground and it just wasn't going to work for us today. But that stuff happens and I'm sure we'll get through it."
"Well Mike, actually we consider it a success," Robinson said. "We're looking at the SARJ rotating on the big screen up there and people are darn happy about that."
"Yeah, Steve, the glass is definitely at least half full," joked the station commander.
E' in corso lo spegnimento del resto della ISS, rimarranno attivi solo alcuni sistemi, le comunicazioni saranno possibili attraverso il Discovery... saranno sospese le comunicazioni tra la parte americana e la parte russa della stazione. Tutto questo fino alla fine dell'EVA che dovrà terminare di riconfigurare l'hardware che gestisce la distrubuzione dell'energia elettrica dal nuovo segmento P4 al resto della ISS.
Ora non ho trovato i dati esatti dello spessore delle celle, ma mi pare di ricordare che si aggiri nell'ordine di pochi millimetri... questi i dettagli:
Le celle a tripla giunzione, che dovrebbero essere quelle che usano, sono meno di un mm di spessore... e si spezzano solo a guardarle :D
Tra l'altro i campioni che ci hanno dato sono proprio di quelli per uso spaziale.
Secondo me si sono mangiati un bel po' di potenza (vabbè che con 32kW... slurp, averceli anche sul tetto di casa... :D ).
Le celle a tripla giunzione, che dovrebbero essere quelle che usano, sono meno di un mm di spessore... e si spezzano solo a guardarle :D
Tra l'altro i campioni che ci hanno dato sono proprio di quelli per uso spaziale.
Secondo me si sono mangiati un bel po' di potenza (vabbè che con 32kW... slurp, averceli anche sul tetto di casa... :D ).
Non solo avere 4 x 32 kW di potenza generata, ma che anche segue il sole nel suo movimento! :D (i due gruppi di array ruotano/ruoteranno grazie a due enormi giunti rotanti, SARJ).
Probabile che qualcosa si possa rovinare, sarà stato tenuto in conto dai tempi della progettazione, cmq per ora non sembrano preoccupati a proposito... staremo a vedere.
:)
Ora non ho trovato i dati esatti dello spessore delle celle, ma mi pare di ricordare che si aggiri nell'ordine di pochi millimetri... questi i dettagli:
mi pare di capire quindi che questi 41 pannelli siano collegati in maniera indipendente; quindi che quelli eventualmente danneggiati possano semplicemente essere esclusi dalla circuiteria di alimentazione..
Sempre che non sorgano problemi di tipo meccanico/strutturale..
Spero di aver capito bene! ;)
cmq concordo con Gio: se alla Nasa non danno a vedere di essere troppo preoccupati probabilmente non e' cosi' grave
Sarebbe anche bello questo topic se non fosse un
mission log puro.
Invece di fare solo copia/incolla dal sito nasa potete anche spiegare in poche parole quello che c'è scritto per i poveretti come me che non sanno l'inglese?
Insomma che cavolo succede? :D
per esempio
- cosa sono quei getti sottili che escono dai motori ancora spenti poco prima del decollo?
-lo scoppio che si sente un'istante prima dell'accensione dei motori sono delle cariche che esplodendo accendo i gas?
-dieci secondi prima dell decollo una marea d'acqua viene gettata da tanti tubi, sotto la piattaforma. Serve per raffreddarla?
-di chi è la voce in sottofondo durante la telecronaca?
duchetto
15-12-2006, 23:16
per esempio
-di chi è la voce in sottofondo durante la telecronaca?
questa è senz'altro la domanda più interessante :sofico:
Sarebbe anche bello questo topic se non fosse un
mission log puro.
Invece di fare solo copia/incolla dal sito nasa potete anche spiegare in poche parole quello che c'è scritto per i poveretti come me che non sanno l'inglese?
Insomma che cavolo succede? :D
mmh, dipende da quanti partecipano, discorrere da soli o in 2 o 3 non è il massimo sai... :D
PS: non prendo quasi nulla dal nasa.gov, prevalentemente da SFN e NASASpaceFlight / insider USA/NASA.
mi pare di capire quindi che questi 41 pannelli siano collegati in maniera indipendente; quindi che quelli eventualmente danneggiati possano semplicemente essere esclusi dalla circuiteria di alimentazione..
Sempre che non sorgano problemi di tipo meccanico/strutturale..
Si assolutamente, il danneggiamento di un gruppo di celle non compromette tutto un pannello.
- cosa sono quei getti sottili che escono dai motori ancora spenti poco prima del decollo?
E' lo sfogo di ossigeno che viene convogliato in un sistema di tubi disposti negli ugelli delgi SSME per raffreddarli dato che la combustione del propellente (H+O2) porta la temperatura da criogenica a circa 3000°, ben oltre il punto di fusione dell'acciaio.
-lo scoppio che si sente un'istante prima dell'accensione dei motori sono delle cariche che esplodendo accendo i gas?
no, sono gli "sparks igniters" che generano delle scintille il cui scopo è quello di bruciare l'idrogeno "perso" durante la procedura di accesione dei motori in cui il combustibile (idrogeno) è fatto confluire in un condotto, mentre il comburente (ossigeno) in uno parallelo e da qui fino al meccanismo di accensione e quindi alla camera di combustione, dopo essere passati per la turbopompa. L'idrogeno in eccesso che può uscire dagli ugelli dei motori prima dell'accensione vera e propria deve essere bruciato prima che si concentri e possa quindi esplodere con conseguenze disastrose per lo Shuttle e la piattaforma di lancio.
-dieci secondi prima dell decollo una marea d'acqua viene gettata da tanti tubi, sotto la piattaforma. Serve per raffreddarla?
No, serve per smorzare l'onda d'urto sonora creata dai motori (soprattutto dai due SRB). Senza questo accorgimento l'intero stack semplicemente si disintegrerebbe.
-di chi è la voce in sottofondo durante la telecronaca?
Dipende, la telecronaca del lancio in genere è del PAO (Public Account Officer) della NASA presso il KSC, e cioè Bruce Buckingham (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/biographies/buckingh.html).
Subito dopo il lancio, e cioè a missione iniziata (precisamente nel momento in cui il controllo missione a Huoston prende appunto il controllo, quando lo Shuttle ha superato la torre del pad), la cronaca viene continuata dal commentatore scelto dal PAO di Houston, ma in questo caso ce ne sono almeno 2 che si alternano durante il corso della missione, di cui però non ricordo i nomi.
Video del lancio in alta definizione (1080i):
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/multimedia/index.html
0142 GMT (8:42 p.m. EST)
MIssion Control says at about 8:57 p.m. EST, the P6 solar wing will be re-deployed one section and then a slow retraction will be attempted tonight.
0207 GMT (9:07 p.m. EST Fri.)
The deploy attempt did not succeed in clearing the problem. The crew was able to get the array retracted back into essentially the same configuration it was in before this try started.
Solar array activities added to Saturday spacewalk
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 15, 2006
NASA managers late this evening told the Discovery astronauts that if enough time is available at the end of an already-planned spacewalk Saturday, two spacewalkers will be asked to carry out an up-close inspection of a partially retracted solar array to help engineers figure out what might be needed to coax the blankets into full retraction.
"We'll plan to execute EVA-3 tomorrow as published," astronaut Stephen Robinson radioed the astronauts late today. "It includes all the (planned) tasks. When we are done, assuming all the power and thermal reconfiguration goes well as it did during EVA-2, then if we have time, we may do a fairly simple task to do an inspection of this solar array wing.
Flight controllers plan to ask one or both spacewalkers to manually shake the array storage box to loosen a presumably stuck guide wire believed to be preventing a cluster of solar blanket slats from evenly folding up like a pleated blind. No other repair work will be attempted, at least according to the latest planning, but engineers are holding open the possibility of staging a fourth, unplanned spacewalk Monday if necessary.
"Right now, there's a lot of discussions going on as to mechanically what really is the hang up," Robinson said. "We're currently envisioning this as an inspection task. How much and what you could touch and what kind of good it could do is still very much under discussion, so we're not ready to really tell you what that could be. That will probably be developing even during EVA-3 tomorrow. So right now, think of it as going up, taking a really close look and telling us what's really going on."
The primary goal of Saturday's spacewalk, scheduled to begin around 2:42 p.m., is to re-wire two of the space station's four major electrical circuits. Power channels 2 and 3 were successfully activated during a spacewalk Thursday along with one of the station's two independent ammonia cooling loops.
Astronauts Robert Curbeam and newly arrived station astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams plan to re-wire power channels 1 and 4 during Saturday's spacewalk followed by activation of cooling loop A.
As originally laid out, the spacewalk was expected to last about six hours. But during Thursday's excursion, Curbeam and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang completed the channel 2/3 re-wiring a full hour ahead of schedule. Flight controllers say Saturday's spacewalk could be extended to seven hours if necessary, providing time for the solar array inspection.
The problem with solar wing P6-4B cropped up Wednesday, when the astronauts attempted to retract the blankets as part of work to switch the space station over to its permanent power system.
The P6 array, which features two wings - 2B extending on the right side of the station and 4B on the left - stretches 240 feet from tip to tip. It was mounted on the station six years ago to provide interim power during the initial stages of assembly.
To activate the station's permanent power system, the Discovery astronauts needed to retract the left wing of P6 to clear the way for a newly-installed set of arrays, known as P4, to begin rotating to track the sun. The right wing of P6, the 2B panel, will be retracted next March and in the fall of 2006, P6 will be moved to its permanent position on the left end of the station's main solar array truss next to P4.
But the P6-4B wing refused to cooperate and despite more than six-and-a-half hours of trying, the astronauts were only able to retract the panel about halfway. That was enough to permit the P4 array to rotate as required to track the sun, but not enough to provide the desired long-term structural stability.
Today, the astronauts attempted to shake the stuck slats loose by rotating the array's central mast to set up oscillations in the flexible blanket. German astronaut Thomas Reiter even tried exercising with bungie cords in a bid to set up vibrations in the station structure that might jostle the unruly array. But the efforts had no discernible effects.
NASA managers are reluctant to add a dedicated spacewalk to Discovery's mission because that would force the astronauts to forego a planned heat shield inspection after undocking from the station. In addition, work on the arrays poses a variety of risks because of the unknown nature of the problem, sharp edges, lack of training and the potential for electric shock.
Unlike some shuttle missions, Discovery's flight cannot be extended. Before launch, NASA managers decided to add a day to the flight and the shuttle does not have enough hydrogen and oxygen for its electricity producing fuel cells for any additional extensions beyond the two days NASA always keeps in reserve for bad weather.
While some engineers clearly favor a spacewalk repair, others are opposed, arguing the partially retracted panel is stable in the short term and that it makes more sense to defer retraction until engineers understand the problem - and possible solutions - more thoroughly.
The space station crew could carry out a retraction spacewalk, or the work could be deferred until the next shuttle crew arrives.
However the debate plays out, a decision must be made Saturday one way or the other.
"We have a great view of what's going on with the array up there from the shuttle flight deck," station commander Mike Lopez-Alegria told reporters earlier today. "My perspective looking at it from the inside last time was it doesn't need much coaxing. You've probably heard us use the analogy of trying to fold a map. As you know at times when you're folding a map it's helpful to poke it here and there and I think our approach will be not very different from that, although we'll be poking gently."
For his part, Curbeam said "there's a lot of very delicate pieces to the solar array wing and we want to make sure we don't rip one of those blankets or damage any of the hardware that's up there. ... As always, you want to do no harm first."
Stupenda l'EVA-3 di ieri notte, mai visto prima un simile lavoro in team tra EVA-ISS-MCC. Infine, una dimostrazione in più di come solo l'uomo possa fare certi lavori, altro che i futuri robot... :D
Spacewalkers shake solar wing; Another EVA Monday
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061216fd8pre/index5.html
Astronaut Robert Curbeam, a weight lifter in his spare time, and fellow spacewalker Sunita "Suni" Williams, a former Navy diver and helicopter pilot, took turns shaking a huge solar array storage box today in a bid to loosen up sticky grommets and fully retract unruly blankets. Despite considerable initial success, the astronauts ran into a particularly stubborn grommet on Williams' side and ran out of time, setting the stage for a fourth spacewalk Monday to complete the array's retraction.
Video del lancio in alta definizione (1080i):
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/multimedia/index.html
Porca miseria, perchè mi va a scatti? Che abbia qualche problema di codec? Eppure il portatile è HD... :mbe:
Porca miseria, perchè mi va a scatti? Che abbia qualche problema di codec? Eppure il portatile è HD... :mbe:
anche a me si "lentizza" qualche secondo dall'inizio, poi ridiventa fluido.
Hai provato con la versione mov?
cmq per i video HD consiglio il player VLC.
Altri video in HD - ECCEZIONALI
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/get-attachment.asp?attachmentid=15751
è un .torrent, 4,37 GB... sei filmati in alta definizione. A parte uno show acrobatico alla Edwards Air Force Base, gli altri sono video di lanci dell'Atlantis e dell'Endeavour avvenuti nel 2000.
Da qualche mese inoltre la NASA ha avviato una collaborazione con HDNet per la registrazione e la diffusione di video in HD dei lanci e delle attività spaziali nell'ambito del programma STS per le rimanenti missioni dello Shuttle (cercate nel mulo e troverete i lanci delle ultime missioni, STS-121 e STS-115 (manca ancora l'STS-114 e quella in corso).
Sono fantastici!
Altri video in HD - ECCEZIONALI
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/get-attachment.asp?attachmentid=15751
è un .torrent, 4,37 GB... sei filmati in alta definizione. A parte uno show acrobatico alla Edwards Air Force Base, gli altri sono video di lanci dell'Atlantis e dell'Endeavour avvenuti nel 2000.
Da qualche mese inoltre la NASA ha avviato una collaborazione con HDNet per la registrazione e la diffusione di video in HD dei lanci e delle attività spaziali nell'ambito del programma STS per le rimanenti missioni dello Shuttle (cercate nel mulo e troverete i lanci delle ultime missioni, STS-121 e STS-115 (manca ancora l'STS-114 e quella in corso).
Sono fantastici!
Il link è solo per i registrati... perchè non fai l'anima pia e alleghi qui il torrent? :fiufiu:
Il link è solo per i registrati... perchè non fai l'anima pia e alleghi qui il torrent? :fiufiu:
http://giofx.altervista.org/links/Amazing_NASA_HDTV_720p_movies[1].3290976.TPB.torrent
http://giofx.altervista.org/links/Amazing_NASA_HDTV_720p_movies[1].3290976.TPB.torrent
...non vorrei fare la parte del rompicoglioni :D ma non riesco a scaricarlo, o mi apre la pagina principale di altervista o non lo scarica :fagiano:
Intanto, proprio per non passare per il rompicoglioni, do almeno una notizia... :asd:
Sbloccato pannello solare Discovery
Conclusa con successo quarta passeggiata spaziale
(ANSA) - NEW YORK, 19 DIC - Gli astronauti della navetta Discovery hanno concluso con successo la loro quarta passeggiata spaziale e si apprestano al rientro.Durante l'ultima uscita, fuori programma, sono riusciti a sbloccare una volta per tutte un pannello solare della Stazione Spaziale Internazionale (Iss) che da giorni stava dando filo da torcere alla Nasa. Il pannello doveva ripiegarsi a soffietto e rientrare, ma ogni tentativo lo aveva visto finora bloccarsi a meta' strada.
...non vorrei fare la parte del rompicoglioni :D ma non riesco a scaricarlo, o mi apre la pagina principale di altervista o non lo scarica :fagiano:
in che senso? strano, l'ho messo nel mio spazio web, a me lo scarica normalmente... :mbe:
c'è un modo per allegare roba in questo forum? :muro:
altrimenti te lo mando via posta!
Station solar array wing successfully retracted at last
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 18, 2006
Perched on the end of the space station's robot arm, astronaut Robert Curbeam, assisted by Swedish flier Christer Fuglesang, finally coaxed a set of balky solar blankets to fully retract today after repeatedly clearing guide wire hangups. The successful retraction of the huge array, which finally folded up like neatly pleated window blinds, was the final objective of the shuttle Discovery's mission to re-wire the international space station.
-
Articolo a questo indirizzo:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061218fd10pre/index3.html
2204 GMT (5:04 p.m. EST)
Five minutes from undocking. The steering jets on Discovery are inhibited for the period of physical undocking from the station. The separation occurs when large springs push the two craft apart. Once the shuttle is a couple feet away from the station and the docking devices are clear of one another, pilot Bill Oefelein will fire Discovery's thrusters to continue the movement away.
2210 GMT (5:10 p.m. EST)
UNDOCKING! Shuttle Discovery is departing the International Space Station after eight days of combined operations that saw installation of the Port 5 truss, a successful re-wiring of the outpost's electrical system and retraction of one P6 solar wing.
Flyby della stazione!
Stupendo!
2315 GMT (6:15 p.m. EST)
Discovery is now 2,700 feet below and moving ahead the station with an opening rate of four feet per second. The second separation engine is coming up in about 12 minutes.
Shuttle Discovery undocks from the space station
The space shuttle Discovery undocked from the international space station today after a successful four-spacewalk visit to re-wire the outpost and prepare it for arrival of European and Japanese research modules over the next two years.
Sailing through space at five miles per second 220 miles above the Indian Ocean, hooks and latches locking the shuttle's docking system to the station disengaged at 5:10 p.m. and Discovery eased away from the lab complex.
"Discovery. Departing," station commander Mike Lopez-Alegria, a Navy captain, said as the shuttle moved away, ringing a ship's bell in the Destiny laboratory module.
With pilot William Oefelien at the controls, Discovery moved out in front of the station and then looped up to a point 600 feet directly overhead before thruster firings to depart the area.
"We have completed the sep one burn," shuttle commander Mark Polansky radioed. "And for (space station) Alpha from the crew of Discovery: we wish you smooth sailing. Thank you for the hospitality and hard work and we hope you enjoy the new electrical system on board station."
As the shuttle slowly separated, observers in the eastern United States saw the two as "a fast-moving, bright, white star" in the early evening sky, according to an observer in Chappaqua, N.Y. "It was as bright as Venus but looked larger," he said.
Considered the most complex shuttle mission ever flown, Discovery's crew added an extension to the station's main solar array truss and activated the lab's permanent electrical system. They also staged a dramatic, unplanned spacewalk Monday to complete the retraction of a balky solar array.
-
Articolo:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061219fd11pre/index3.html
in che senso? strano, l'ho messo nel mio spazio web, a me lo scarica normalmente... :mbe:
c'è un modo per allegare roba in questo forum? :muro:
altrimenti te lo mando via posta!
Puoi provare a zipparlo e fare Allega File quando fai un nuovo post...
Da me anche facendo Salva con nome lo scarica ma mi dice che non è un torrent valido, per cui presumo che in realtà non lo scarichi... :fagiano:
Certo che se io ti rispondo di mattina e tu ti colleghi solo alla sera questa cosa andrà per le lunghe parecchio :D
Puoi provare a zipparlo e fare Allega File quando fai un nuovo post...
Da me anche facendo Salva con nome lo scarica ma mi dice che non è un torrent valido, per cui presumo che in realtà non lo scarichi... :fagiano:
mmmmhhhh... strano, se riesci a scaricare il torrent non credo sia un problema di come allegarlo, ma del fatto che per qualche motivo non riesce a rinoscerlo...
il discorso dell'allegato è semplice, o sono io rinco o non c'è modo in questo forum di allegare files, o sbaglio? :stordita: :p
dopocena trovo un modo di darti questo benedetto torrent... :D
Certo che se io ti rispondo di mattina e tu ti colleghi solo alla sera questa cosa andrà per le lunghe parecchio :D
in effetti... :D
purtroppo non ho internet dal cliente... :cry:
Purtroppo sono rientrato tardi a casa ieri sera, e ora devo scappare a lavoro... cmq ho controllato e il torrent sul mio dominio è corretto, o almeno a me con TorrentStorm lo scarica.
Hai provato a installare l'ultima versione di BitTorrent o un client come Azureus? riprova gp, altrimenti stasera lo rigenero io.
Purtroppo sono rientrato tardi a casa ieri sera, e ora devo scappare a lavoro... cmq ho controllato e il torrent sul mio dominio è corretto, o almeno a me con TorrentStorm lo scarica.
Hai provato a installare l'ultima versione di BitTorrent o un client come Azureus? riprova gp, altrimenti stasera lo rigenero io.
Ho azureus, lo uso praticamente tutti i giorni ( :fiufiu: ) e non mi ha mai dato problemi... ora provo a scaricarlo con qualche altro programma, vediamo che succede...
Uh ce l'ho fatta, era solo questione di aprirlo direttamente come indirizzo e non come link :stordita:
Uh ce l'ho fatta, era solo questione di aprirlo direttamente come indirizzo e non come link :stordita:
:read:
sto sharando per velocizzare! :cool:
SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061221landpre/
Astronauts test entry systems for Friday landing
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: December 21, 2006
The Discovery astonauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems today and packed up for a trip back to Earth Friday to close out a successful space station re-wiring mission. The only question today is where the seven astronauts will land.
Because of an earlier decision to add a spacewalk to Discovery's mission, the shuttle only has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Saturday at the latest. To provide a safety cushion in case of unexpected problems with the spacecrat, NASA flight rules call for a return to Earth Friday, weather permitting, at one of the agency's three landing sites - the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., or Northrup Strip at White Sands Space Harbor, N.M.
With marginal to bad weather expected in Florida and California, NASA may be facing its first New Mexico shuttle landing since 1982. Because White Sands is NASA's lowest-priority landing site, equipment needed to prepare the shuttle for a ferry flight back to Florida is not readily available and Discovery's return to Kennedy would be delayed four to six weeks.
NASA managers are hoping the forecast changes and that the weather will permit a landing in either Florida or California. The astronauts have landing opportunities at all three sites on four successive orbits Friday starting with a deorbit burn on orbit 203 at 2:49 p.m. for a landing on KSC runway 15 at 3:56 p.m.
Edwards, Northrup and Kennedy are available on the next orbit, for landings around 5:30 p.m. EST, and two more opportunities, at Edwards and White Sands, are available the orbit after that around 7 p.m. EST. A final Edwards opportunity is available one orbit later, around 8:36 p.m. EST.
Entry flight director Norm Knight, overseeing his first shuttle landing, plans to brief reporters later today on his re-entry strategy. Depending on the actual weather Friday, he will focus the entry team's efforts on the best opportunities for Florida and California.
The forecast for the Kennedy Space Center calls for scattered clouds at 2,000 and 5,000 feet and a broken deck at 10,000 feet. But there is a chance for a broken deck at 5,000 feet and a chance for showers within 30 nautical miles, both flight rule violations. Winds will be gusting to 22 knots, but the crosswind component for a landing on runway 15 is just 2 knots or so.
At Edwards, clouds are no problem but winds out of 290 degrees gusting up to 22 knots will result in a crosswind of about 20 knots for a landing on runway 22/04. The daylight crosswind limit is 15 knots and while that can be raised to 17 if turbulence is mild, forecasters are predicting moderate turbulence at Edwards.
The outlook for Northrup Strip at White Sands calls for light winds and broken cloud decks at 15,000 and 20,000 feet. It is "go" for landing.
Here are all the possible landing opportunities on Friday (in EST and subject to slight change):
FRIDAY, DEC. 22
02:49 PM...12...18...02...Orbit 202 deorbit burn (TIG) for KSC landing
03:56 PM...12...19...09...202 KSC landing
04:19 PM...12...19...32...203 Edwards Air Force Base TIG
05:27 PM...12...20...40...EAFB landing
04:20 PM...12...19...33...203 Northrup Strip TIG
05:27 PM...12...20...40...Northrup landing
04:26 PM...12...19...39...203 KSC TIG
05:32 PM...12...20...45...KSC landing
05:54 PM...12...21...07...204 EAFB TIG
07:00 PM...12...22...13...EAFB landing
05:57 PM...12...21...10...204 Northrup TIG
07:02 PM...12...22...15...Northrup landing
07:32 PM...12...22...45...205 EAFB TIG
08:36 PM...12...23...49...EAFB landing
Assuming the weather provides any chance at all, shuttle commander Mark Polansky, pilot William Oefelein and their crewmates will shoot for a landing in Florida on the first opportunity. That would require a "go" from mission control around 2:30 p.m. for a three-minute 17-second rocket firing at 2:49 p.m., lowering the shuttle's velocity by about 222 mph. After a half-hour free fall, the shuttle would enter the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet - entry interface - at around 3:24 p.m. At that point, the orbiter would be 5,100 miles from runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center with touchdown expected at 3:56:12 p.m.
Here are preliminary numbers for a KSC entry on orbit 202 (in EST; minor changes expected):
EST...........EVENT
10:49:00 AM...Begin deorbit timeline
11:04:00 AM...Radiator stow
11:14:00 AM...Mission specialists seat installation
11:20:00 AM...Computers set for deorbit prep
11:24:00 AM...Hydraulic system configuration
11:49:00 AM...Flash evaporator checkout
11:55:00 AM...Final payload deactivation
12:09:00 PM...Payload bay doors closed
12:19:00 PM...Mission control 'go' for OPS-3 entry software load
12:29:00 PM...OPS-3 transition
12:54:00 PM...Entry switchlist verification
01:04:00 PM...Deorbit parameters update
01:09:00 PM...Crew entry review
01:24:00 PM...Commander, pilot don entry suits
01:41:00 PM...Inertial measurement unit alignment
01:49:00 PM...CDR/PLT strap in; mission specialists suit don
02:06:00 PM...Shuttle steering check
02:09:00 PM...Hydraulic power system prestart
02:16:00 PM...Toilet deactivation
02:24:00 PM...Vent doors closed for entry
02:29:00 PM...Mission control 'go' for deorbit burn
02:35:00 PM...Mission specialists seat ingress
02:44:00 PM...Single APU start
02:49:05 PM...Deorbit ignition
02:52:22 PM...Deorbit burn complete (dV: 326 fps; dT: 3:17)
03:24:19 PM...Entry interface
03:29:19 PM...1st roll command to right
03:36:33 PM...1st left-to-right roll reversal
03:49:46 PM...Velocity less than mach 2.5
03:51:53 PM...Velocity less than mach 1
03:52:40 PM...253-degree left overhead turn to line up on runway
03:56:12 PM...Landing
1801 GMT (1:01 p.m. EST)
The shuttle's main flight computers have completed the switch to the entry software package. And the star trackers have been stowed for entry. Meanwhile, chief astronaut Steve Lindsey is about to take off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Shuttle Training Aircraft for weather reconnaissance flights around the area. Earlier this morning, he was flying in a T-38 jet to examine how the weather situation was developing.
1837 GMT (1:37 p.m. EST)
The weather situation in Florida has become "unstable," CAPCOM Ken Ham just told the crew. Some of the scattered rain shows moving northward are forecast to be within 30 miles of the Kennedy Space Center runway at landing time.
1845 GMT (1:45 p.m. EST)
The forecast of high winds remains the concern at Edwards Air Force Base in California. But the White Sands landing site in New Mexico has a favorable weather outlook today. Only one shuttle mission has landed there -- Columbia on STS-3 in 1982.
1904 GMT (2:04 p.m. EST)
DELAY. The first landing opportunity of the day has been scrubbed due to unstable weather approaching the Kennedy Space Center. So Discovery's mission will be extended an additional orbit. That orbit will present landing options at Edwards Air Force Base, White Sands and KSC between 5:27 and 5:32 p.m. EST, depending on the site. The weather forecast still looks pessimistic at KSC and Edwards has crosswind concerns, but White Sands looks acceptable.
The options available now:
4:19 p.m. deorbit burn for Edwards, landing at 5:27 p.m. EST
4:20 p.m. deorbit burn for White Sands, landing at 5:27 p.m. EST
4:26 p.m. deorbit burn for Kennedy, landing at 5:32 p.m. EST
There is another orbit after that, which has 7 p.m. EST landing opportunities for Edwards and White Sands.
2030 GMT (3:30 p.m. EST)
Entry flight director Norm Knight continues to watch the weather. The crew has been given the data for an Edwards landing opportunity, since it is the next one available. Crosswinds are currently within limits. However, there is still a glimmer of hope that weather will be acceptable at Kennedy Space Center. A final decision on which, if any, site to select for the upcoming orbit will be made within a half-hour or so.
2048 GMT (3:48 p.m. EST)
The landing convoy at Edwards is rolling toward the staging point for Discovery's arrival. The astronauts are loading the Edwards landing information into the computers. But a final "go" to land in California has not yet been made. Flight controllers continue to discuss the possibility of rain showers around Kennedy Space Center and whether the forecast is good enough for a landing there.
2058 GMT (3:58 p.m. EST)
So the first Edwards opportunity will be passed up today due to crosswinds.
The crew is now focusing on the next Kennedy Space Center landing option, which would be the final shot to make it to the Florida spaceport today. That would begin with a deorbit burn at 4:27 p.m. and landing on Runway 15 at 5:32 p.m., if weather is deemed acceptable there.
2056 GMT (3:56 p.m. EST)
Winds are picking up and becoming a bit more dynamic at Edwards Air Force Base. Mission Control is sending the shuttle targets for the Kennedy Space Center landing opportunity.
2107 GMT (4:07 p.m. EST)
Now 20 minutes until the deorbit burn. Standing by for a "go" or "no go" call from Mission Control.
2112 GMT (4:12 p.m. EST)
The area of rain to the southwest of Kennedy Space Center seems to be dissipating as it nears the 30-mile zone around the runway.
2116 GMT (4:16 p.m. EST)
Final weather briefing is underway.
2117 GMT (4:17 p.m. EST)
The weather outlook for KSC still shows some hope.
2121 GMT (4:21 p.m. EST)
GO FOR THE DEORBIT BURN! Weather is declared observed and forecast "go" at Kennedy Space Center. So entry flight director Norm Knight in Mission Control just gave the "go" for Discovery to perform the deorbit burn at 4:27 p.m. EST that will commit the shuttle for the trip back to Earth.
Touchdown in Florida is set for 5:32 p.m. EST.
2125 GMT (4:25 p.m. EST)
Discovery is in the proper orientation for the deorbit burn. And pilot Bill Oefelein has activated one of three Auxiliary Power Units in advance of the burn, now two minutes away. The other two APUs will be started later in the descent to provide pressure needed to power shuttle's hydraulic systems that move the wing flaps, rudder/speed brake, drop the landing gear and steer the nose wheel. NASA ensures that at least one APU is working before committing to the deorbit burn since the shuttle needs only a single unit to make a safe landing.
2127 GMT (4:27 p.m. EST)
DEORBIT BURN IGNITION. Flying upside down and backwards above the Indian Ocean, Discovery has begun the deorbit burn. The firing of the twin Orbital Maneuvering System engines on the tail of the shuttle will last three minutes and 46 seconds, slowing the craft by 262 mph to slip from orbit. The retro-burn will send Discovery to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a touchdown at 5:32 p.m. EST.
2131 GMT (4:31 p.m. EST)
DEORBIT BURN COMPLETE. Discovery has successfully completed the deorbit burn for the trip back home. Landing is scheduled for 5:32 p.m. EST at the Cape following a long afternoon of watching the weather. Meteorologists finally determined conditions would be acceptable for a safe return of the shuttle just before sunset.
2134 GMT (4:34 p.m. EST)
Discovery is now maneuvering to the orientation for entry.
2138 GMT (4:38 p.m. EST)
The convoy of landing support vehicles is moving to runway staging point for receiving Discovery.
2147 GMT (4:47 p.m. EST)
Onboard guidance has maneuvered Discovery from its heads-down, tail-forward position needed for the deorbit burn to the reentry configuration of heads-up and nose-forward. The nose will be pitched upward 40 degrees. In this new position, the black tiles on the shuttle's belly and the reinforced carbon-carbon panels on the wing leading edges and nose cap will shield the spacecraft during the fiery plunge through the Earth's atmosphere with temperatures reaching well over 2,000 degrees F. Discovery will begin interacting with the upper fringes of the atmosphere above the South Pacific at 5:00 p.m. EST.
2200 GMT (5:00 p.m. EST)
ENTRY INTERFACE. Discovery's thermal protection system is feeling heat beginning to build as the orbiter enters the top fringes of the atmosphere -- a period known as entry interface.
The shuttle is flying at Mach 25 with its nose elevated 40 degrees, wings level, at an altitude of 400,000 feet over the southern Pacific Ocean.
Touchdown remains set for 5:32 p.m. EST in Florida.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061221landpre/ksclong.gif
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061221landpre/kscmid.gif
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061221landpre/kscclose.gif
2206 GMT (5:06 p.m. EST)
Discovery is 3,100 miles from Kennedy Space Center, traveling at 16,500 mph.
2209 GMT (5:09 p.m. EST)
Discovery descending through an altitude of 45 miles, 2,400 miles from the landing site, at a speed of 15,700 mph.
2215 GMT (5:15 p.m. EST)
The shuttle is crossing the Mexico-Texas border at an altitude 39 miles and speed of 12,600 mph.
2216 GMT (5:16 p.m. EST)
Discovery now 195,000 feet over Houston, traveling at 11,200 mph.
2217 GMT (5:17 p.m. EST)
The shuttle is 800 miles from the Cape, now crossing into Louisiana, as it flies eastward at 10,200 mph.
2220 GMT (5:20 p.m. EST)
Now 12 minutes from touchdown.
2222 GMT (5:22 p.m. EST)
The TACAN navigation units aboard Discovery are now receiving data from beacons located at the landing site.
2222 GMT (5:22 p.m. EST)
Less than 10 minutes from landing. Discovery is traveling at 4,400 mph, 25 miles in altitude.
2223 GMT (5:23 p.m. EST)
No problems have been reported during the entry.
2225 GMT (5:25 p.m. EST)
Seven minutes to touchdown. Air data probes are being deployed from the shuttle's nose to feed air speed, altitude and angle of attack information to the computers for navigation.
2227 GMT (5:27 p.m. EST)
The crew has been given the "go" for normal deployment of the drag chute after main gear touchdown.
2227 GMT (5:27 p.m. EST)
Now descending through 50,000 feet. Ground tracking cameras have a good view of Discovery.
2228 GMT (5:28 p.m. EST)
The shuttle is in the Heading Alignment Cylinder, an imaginary circle to align with Runway 15. Commander Mark Polansky is piloting Discovery through a 330-degree left-overhead turn.
2230 GMT (5:30 p.m. EST)
The sonic booms have thundered across the Cape area, announcing the shuttle's arrival.
2230 GMT (5:30 p.m. EST)
Altitude 15,000 feet as Discovery makes the sweeping turn.
2231 GMT (5:31 p.m. EST)
The shuttle descending at a rate seven times steeper than that of a commercial airliner.
2232 GMT (5:32 p.m. EST)
TOUCHDOWN! Main gear touchdown. Drag chute deployed. Nose gear touchdown.
2233 GMT (5:33 p.m. EST)
WHEEL STOP. Discovery is home after 204 orbits and 5.3 million miles! A safe and successful sunset landing for the shuttle at its home port in the time for the holidays.
La missione è conclusa anche per Gio-telemetria-FX :D
:yeah:
...
Iniziate le attività di post-atterraggio, prima tra tutte la neutralizzazione di gas di ammoniaca dei circuiti di raffreddamento.
The external tank umbilical doors on the shuttle's belly are being opened. And the drag chute and landing gear pyrotechnics have been safed.
Main Gear Touchdown
5:32:00 p.m. EST
MET: 12 days, 20 hours, 44 minutes, 24 seconds
Nose Gear Touchdown
5:32:12 p.m. EST
MET: 11 days, 19 hours, 6 minutes, 41 seconds
Wheels Stop
5:32:52 p.m. EST
MET: 11 days, 19 hours, 7 minutes, 21 seconds
Video dell'atterraggio del Discovery (asx):
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1270
gp, hai finito di scaricare i video?
Discovery is home for the holidays
da SpaceFlightNow.com: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/061222landing/index.html
gp, hai finito di scaricare i video?
:stordita:
Sto al 40%... :fagiano:
:stordita:
Sto al 40%... :fagiano:
lentooo!!! :doh:
:read:
Finito :cool:
'mazza che roba, son rimasto così :eek:
Finito :cool:
'mazza che roba, son rimasto così :eek:
e sono "solo" in 720p, non hai visto i lanci dal RTF fino all'ultima missione (STS-121, STS-114, STS-115 e quella in oggetto) di HDNet che sono in 1080p! A favore questi hanno la colonna sonora a corredo... il migliore secondo me è quello di Dreamtime.
Per la cronaca, io li ho rinominati come segue (indicando i dati):
- NASA abc HDTV 720p.mpg (STS-106, Atlantis, 09.08.2000): NASA - STS-106 - Atlantis - 09.08.2000 (ABC).mpg
- NASA Dreamtime HDTV 720p.mpg (STS-99, Endeavour, 02.11.2000): NASA - STS-099 - Endeavour - 02.11.2000 (Dreamtime).mpg
- NASA Shuttle Launch HDTV.avi (notturno, STS-108, Atlantis, 07.12.2001): NASA - STS-108 - Atlantis - 07.12.2001.avi
- NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis HDTV 720p.mpg (STS-106): NASA - STS-106 - Atlantis - 09.08.2000.mpg
- NASA Space Shuttle Endevour HDTV 720p.mpg (STS-99): NASA - STS-099 - Endeavour - 02.11.2000.mpg
Eh, io sono giunto alla conclusione che i 1080i non li riesco a vedere, figurati i 1080p... alla faccia del "mobile high definition" :rolleyes:
Ho provato perfino a creare un disco virtuale in ram per copiarci il file per vedere se era problema di velocità del disco, ma niente, la cpu resta al 100% in tutti i momenti in cui il video si blocca, per cui è colpa della potenza del computer, nient'altro.
Mi chiedo che diavolo ci voglia per vedere un 1080p :confused:
Comunque su un 17" wide sinceramente non mi sembra di vedere differenza -come qualità- tra un 720p e un 1080i...
Eh, io sono giunto alla conclusione che i 1080i non li riesco a vedere, figurati i 1080p... alla faccia del "mobile high definition" :rolleyes:
Ho provato perfino a creare un disco virtuale in ram per copiarci il file per vedere se era problema di velocità del disco, ma niente, la cpu resta al 100% in tutti i momenti in cui il video si blocca, per cui è colpa della potenza del computer, nient'altro.
Mi chiedo che diavolo ci voglia per vedere un 1080p :confused:
Comunque su un 17" wide sinceramente non mi sembra di vedere differenza -come qualità- tra un 720p e un 1080i...
E' vero, infatti si nota pochissimo in monitor di piccole dimensioni e non certificati per l'HD... la cosa che si nota è il dettaglio e la profondità del colore, ma poco altro... su un TV HD da almeno 40" immagino faccia la sua porca figura.
Cmq si, ci vuole un computer ninja per il 1080p, e ovviamente una scheda grafica che supporti in qualche modo il progressive-scan (a quanto ho letto solo le ultime Radeon e GeForce, tutte le altre al max supportano la renderizzazione di video interlacciato).
lzeppelin
29-12-2006, 22:03
Sono incantato da questi video...
Ne ero sempre alla ricerca sul web
Grazie a GioFX per gli approfondimenti e complimenti per la profonda conoscenza.
Dove hai imparato?
Ho visto che hai spiegato cose abbastanza oscure al popolo comune :)
Io ultimamente ho mollato un po' l'astronautica per l'astronomia, ma questo 3d mi ha fatto tornare la voglia alla grande.
Cazzarola devo preferzionare l'inglese, ormai bisogna masticarlo come la prima lingua!
Sono incantato da questi video...
Ne ero sempre alla ricerca sul web
Grazie a GioFX per gli approfondimenti e complimenti per la profonda conoscenza.
Dove hai imparato?
Ho visto che hai spiegato cose abbastanza oscure al popolo comune :)
Io ultimamente ho mollato un po' l'astronautica per l'astronomia, ma questo 3d mi ha fatto tornare la voglia alla grande.
Cazzarola devo preferzionare l'inglese, ormai bisogna masticarlo come la prima lingua!
Ciao compaesano!
Beh, ho imparato un pò qua e un pò la, leggendo e documentandomi prevalentemente in Internet su forum specifici, e grazie soprattutto alle informazioni di insider del mestiere... :D
Ho anche il reference manual del programma STS, ma non ho ancora avuto modo di leggerlo per bene dato che sono 1200 pagine in tutto... :D
:)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/PaulRix/Astronomy/issdiscoveryv3.jpg
Questa è un'immagine presa dall'abitazione di un membro del forum di NasaSpaceFlight.com, a Zanesville, Ohio, poco meno di un'ora dopo dall'undocking del Discovery dalla ISS, il 18.12.2006 alle 18:01 EST.
lzeppelin
01-01-2007, 13:20
cavolo!
strumento?
cavolo!
strumento?
Dalla persona che l'ha fatta:
Glad that you like it! THe image was taken with my 10inch Meade LX200 and a Phillips SPC900NC webcam. I shot at 20 frames per second and ended up with something like 3900 frames to sift through. The vast majority of those were empty but some showed the ISS and Discovery. Most of those were blurred though. I ended up with maybe 4 reasonable images and the one above was the best of those. It was an incredibly lucky shot because so much had to go right that was out of my hands. First the pass itself (in this case it was almost right overhead at 82 degrees from the horizon), the timing of the separation, the weather here in Ohio and finally, I was on a flight that day which meant that by the time I got home I had just about an hour to get everything set up, focus the scope, zero in my telrad sight and guess at exposure settings. The scope is computerized and can track deep space objects, but the ISS and Discovery move across the sky far too fast for it, therefore I power the scope off and point it manually using the Telrad. That gives me a very low percentage of 'good' frames.. but then I only needed one to come out well.
lzeppelin
01-01-2007, 15:59
Un made lx 200 da 10 pollici e una web cam, una strumentazione del tutto amatoriale simile a quella che tengo io. Ma questo ha avuto tanto fondoschiena...
Un made lx 200 da 10 pollici e una web cam, una strumentazione del tutto amatoriale simile a quella che tengo io. Ma questo ha avuto tanto fondoschiena...
mah, il tempo ha collaborato... per il resto non è che serva molta fortuna, basta controllare le orbite quale area coprono e fine.
lzeppelin
01-01-2007, 19:02
Non parlavo della difficoltà nell'individuare l'oggetto, considernado che, sicuramente, il tizio sarà stato aiutato dal puntamento automatico,
ma della incredibile trasparenza e stabilità del cielo, di sicuro avrà trovato un momento di prima classe di seeing per ottenre tale definizionecon un 10 pollici.
Io non ho mai trovato un momento di prima classe di seeing, nemmeno in montagna.
albertoz85
02-01-2007, 10:11
Il seeing non è così determinanante per questo tipo di immagini, e nella foto pubblicata l'autore è ancora abbastanza lontano dal limite pratico raggiungibile con quello strumento, la bellezza della foto sta nel momento in cui è stata catturata, ma quella è solo questione di c...o.
Il limite di una strumentazione come quella è visibile in queste foto:
http://www.iss-tracking.de/images/stationpic.html
http://pictures.ed-morana.com/ISSTransits/
Se permettete la foto pubblicata è molto più vicina a queste:
http://www.newton114.it/sat.htm
sono eseguite dal sottoscritto... ma con un newton 114/900... :)
lzeppelin
02-01-2007, 12:34
Il seeing non è così determinanante per questo tipo di immagini, e nella foto pubblicata l'autore è ancora abbastanza lontano dal limite pratico raggiungibile con quello strumento, la bellezza della foto sta nel momento in cui è stata catturata, ma quella è solo questione di c...o.
Il limite di una strumentazione come quella è visibile in queste foto:
http://www.iss-tracking.de/images/stationpic.html
http://pictures.ed-morana.com/ISSTransits/
Se permettete la foto pubblicata è molto più vicina a queste:
http://www.newton114.it/sat.htm
sono eseguite dal sottoscritto... ma con un newton 114/900... :)
beh stiamo parlando di foto in alta risoluzione dove la percezione dei dettagli è tutto.
In questi casi il diametro non è l'unico parametro da cui deriva la risoluzione angolare, e il seeing pesa eccome...
albertoz85
02-01-2007, 13:15
beh stiamo parlando di foto in alta risoluzione dove la percezione dei dettagli è tutto.
In questi casi il diametro non è l'unico parametro da cui deriva la risoluzione angolare, e il seeing pesa eccome...
Si ma come vedi il limite è molto più il là rispetto a quella foto, e sono molto più influenti altri parametri come l'altezza del passaggio, l'orientamento o la fase anzichè il seeing. Proprio il seeing non è così "selettivo" in riprese di questo tipo perchè qui si tratta di singoli frame, e non di somme come per le riprese in alta risoluzione dei pianeti dove è imprescidibile un buon seeing per avere una buona foto. I frame sono molto rapidi per cui non si fa in tempo a vedere la distorsione creata dall'atmosfera e neanche quindi a percepirla confrontandola con un altro ipotetico frame, cosa invece che non avviene nelle riprese planetarie dove invece conta avere i frame più simili possibili fra loro ed equivale ad un seeing migliore possibile.
lzeppelin
02-01-2007, 14:37
scusa non ho letto bene allora,
ma stiamo parlando di singoli scatti? :eek:
mi pareva di aver letto che i frame erano stati elaborati con iris o registax...
davvero si rende così facile l'oggetto ?
albertoz85
02-01-2007, 15:05
scusa non ho letto bene allora,
ma stiamo parlando di singoli scatti? :eek:
mi pareva di aver letto che i frame erano stati elaborati con iris o registax...
davvero si rende così facile l'oggetto ?
Si beh le elaborazioni possono essere state fatte con questi due sw che sono utilizzabili per tante altre funzioni oltre che per la somma di frame.
Per le riprese di questo tipo non è possibile eseguire delle somme di frame perchè la stazione è in rapido movimento rispetto l'osservatore, sia in avvicinamento-allontanamento si per la rotazione relativa della ISS, mi sembra ci siano delle .gif che rendono l'idea del movimento sia nei siti linkati prima sia nell'ultima immagine che ho registrato io.
I problemi legati a questo genere di riprese sono nella brevità dei transiti che non permettono regolazioni durante il passaggio, si imposta tutto prima (esposizione, luminosità, fuoco...) e poi si segue manualmente (come me :) ) oppure guidando il tele con il pc guando la ISS compare all'orizzonte. Il vantaggio, quando si trova tutto il set di parametri giusti, sta nel fatto che non varia più e per tutti i passaggi andranno bene quelle impostazioni... il problema è che ci si mette del tempo per trovarli... io ho impiegato 2 anni utilizzando tutti i passaggi della ISS (maltempo escluso) sopra i 50° per riuscire ad avere quel genere di foto, adesso però penso di aver trovato un buon compromesso per quello che mi permette la mia strumentazione... :)
lzeppelin
02-01-2007, 15:10
hai ragione, non ci avevo pensato alla rotazione, era ovvio che non potevano essere somma di frame :muro:
eh io a malapena me la cavo nei pianeti qui non mi metto proprio :D
cmq complimenti, non è poi così facile come sembra allora
lzeppelin
16-01-2007, 09:56
Ragazzi, seriamente, andiamo a Cape Canaveral?
Ci sono gite organizzate ogni giorno, si fanno 2 giri di 2 ore ciascuno all'interno del KSC con un pulmino, e ci si ferma in tappe prestabilite con delle guide!
E poi si sarebbe vicini ad Orlando la città dei divertimenti per antonomasia (disney world e altre decine di parchi divertimento)
Ovviamente sarebbe da fare quest'estate...
Sinceramente il tour che fanno ora (dopo gli attentati di 5 anni fa) non è più bello come prima, e si vede poco... molto meglio assistere ad un lancio, anche da lontano, esperienza incredibile a detta di tutti... peccato che non sia facile beccarlo! :D
Per il resto non è che mi attragga molto la Florida, anzi...
lzeppelin
08-02-2007, 11:14
ragazzi sto seriamente pensando di andare ad Orlando quest'estate e fare una gita al KSC :D ... dovrei solo trovare la compagnia adeguata... vi farò sapere...
comuque volevo chiedere a che altezza si separano i SRB?
e come si separano? sembra una carica esplosiva, ma non penso proprio visto che l'ET è ancora bello carico.. giusto?
ragazzi sto seriamente pensando di andare ad Orlando quest'estate e fare una gita al KSC :D ... dovrei solo trovare la compagnia adeguata... vi farò sapere...
comuque volevo chiedere a che altezza si separano i SRB?
e come si separano? sembra una carica esplosiva, ma non penso proprio visto che l'ET è ancora bello carico.. giusto?
GLi SRB si separano a 158000 piedi (~48000 metri) a poco piu' di due minuti dal lancio
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/116ascentdata.html
Si separano dall'ET tramite dei bulloni esplosivi:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/srb.html
lzeppelin
08-02-2007, 14:31
grazie mille , ci hai passato prorpio un bel documento!
per la precisione diciamo a circa T+130'', ma può variare leggermente perchè la separazione avviene sei secondi dopo che i computer (GPC) verificano che i sensori di pressione nelle camere di combustione degli SRB indicano che la pressione è scesa sotto i 50 psi.
Qui puoi trovare una descrizione più approfondita:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/events/1stage/
Ma se vuoi sapere tutti i dettagli consiglio ovviamente il Shuttle Reference Manual (esiste anche in PDF però attenzione sono circa 1183 pagine):
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/index.html
albertoz85
08-02-2007, 21:18
Ma se vuoi sapere tutti i dettagli consiglio ovviamente il Shuttle Reference Manual (esiste anche in PDF però attenzione sono circa 1183 pagine):
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/index.html
Scusa, dove è che si trova la versione pdf? E' un mucchio di tempo che cerco una versione scaricabile, ma per ora ho trovato solo versioni online...
Scusa, dove è che si trova la versione pdf? E' un mucchio di tempo che cerco una versione scaricabile, ma per ora ho trovato solo versioni online...
Credo di averla trovata sul forum di Nasaspaceflight.com o in un altro, non ricordo, ma sono circa 79 MB divisi in un Overview e due parti... vedo se la ritrovo.
lzeppelin
09-02-2007, 00:25
se ci passi il link per il pdf ti incoroniamo :D
se ci passi il link per il pdf ti incoroniamo :D
Domani lo cerco prometto, se non lo ritrovo lo metterò su eMule o su Torrent... ;)
spulciando si trovano sempre cose interessanti ed esplicative.. ;)
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/images/mission_profile_2-small.gif
full-res:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/images/mission_profile_2.jpg
lzeppelin
09-02-2007, 19:31
che belle sta cose ragazzi... siete molto più abili di me a trovare documenti preziosi.
ma la curva RTLS che torna al LAUNCH a cosa si riferisce?
che belle sta cose ragazzi... siete molto più abili di me a trovare documenti preziosi.
ma la curva RTLS che torna al LAUNCH a cosa si riferisce?
l'RTLS (Return To Launch Site) è la prima opzione, come viene spiegato qui:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/mission_profile.html#rtls_abort
Le altre opzioni di ABORT sono: TAL (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/mission_profile.html#tal_abort) (Transatlantic Abort Landing), AOA (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/mission_profile.html#ato_abort) (Abort Once Around), ATO (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_mes.html#mes_aoa) (Abort To Orbit).
L'ATO è stata l'unica procerdura di abort utilizzata durante il programma STS, in occasione della missione del Challenger, STS-51F.
lzeppelin
09-02-2007, 20:55
Ma nel grafico mostrano la manovra ATO anche come nominal missionon. E' quindi una traiettoria comune ?
lzeppelin
09-02-2007, 21:39
mi rispondo da solo: no :D
ho letto la pagina delle traiettorie...
aspettando il manuale :D
(prova a metterlo in condivisione)
mi rispondo da solo: no :D
ho letto la pagina delle traiettorie...
aspettando il manuale :D
(prova a metterlo in condivisione)
Ce l'ho in condivisione come [NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip].
E' l'ultima revisione generale del programma, dopo il Challenger (settembre 1988).
lzeppelin
10-02-2007, 09:45
trovato :D
albertoz85
10-02-2007, 11:10
Ce l'ho in condivisione come [NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip].
Ehmmm in condivisione... dove?
Si trova sul mulo (ed2k://|file|NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip|78989193|C27F7E14881361B3FD37EFC9492CB67A|h=CR7HDCJ2GFGNEBKXMRVIHOUDBOB66A4Z|/).
albertoz85
10-02-2007, 12:50
Si trova sul mulo (ed2k://|file|NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip|78989193|C27F7E14881361B3FD37EFC9492CB67A|h=CR7HDCJ2GFGNEBKXMRVIHOUDBOB66A4Z|/).
Grazie mille! anche se la coda è lunghissima... :)
Ve lo metterei in BT se sapessi come usare bene Azureus e come si creano i torrents! :D
Mi sono reso conto adesso che stiamo postando sul thread della missione STS-116, sarebbe più giusto farlo su quella del programma STS... :) ;)
Gio sei un MITO! :eek: :eek: :eek: :ave: :ave:
però su emule è sparito..non lo trovo con quel nome...ho provato anche tutte le possibile alternative ma niente...c'è qualche buon'anima in grado di passarmelo su mirc o msn o qualcos'altro a sua scelta? :help:
Grazie in anticipo :read:
Gio sei un MITO! :eek: :eek: :eek: :ave: :ave:
però su emule è sparito..non lo trovo con quel nome...ho provato anche tutte le possibile alternative ma niente...c'è qualche buon'anima in grado di passarmelo su mirc o msn o qualcos'altro a sua scelta? :help:
Grazie in anticipo :read:
io ce l'ho ancora in condivisione, strange... :boh: :confused: :O
lzeppelin
10-02-2007, 19:27
c'è c'è...
solo che ora che si scarica ci vorrà un bel po..
c'è c'è...
solo che ora che si scarica ci vorrà un bel po..
andrò ot ma connesso a donkeyserver2 con kad aperto e cercando
[NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip]
NASA.STS.Reference.PDF.zip
Nasa Reference
Nasa PDF
Nasa sts
ma nada...
se potete inoltrarmi in pvt il link ed2k mi metto in coda aiutando in share... :read:
vBulletin® v3.6.4, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.