[Space] NASA - STS Program - Space Shuttle RTF

[Rand]

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/shuttle_06_08/1.jpg

[GioFX]

Posto qui perchè è più importante la (per'altro ormai attesa) notizia sulla sempre più probabile estensione del programma STS che non un ritardo del Constellation.

Da NasaSpaceFlight.com:

Ares/Orion slipping up to 18 months - Shuttle extension gains upper hand

NASA’s Constellation Program (CxP) will conduct a “Content and Schedule” summit meeting in the next few months, after it was evaluated their current schedules are “broken”. The meeting will aim to protect against a slip that is estimated to be as serious as 18 months, or outright cancellation for Ares I. Meanwhile, the push for extending the shuttle program by at least two years is gaining serious momentum.


http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/03/aresorion-slipping-18-months-shuttle-extension-upper-hand/

[Rand]

Posto qui perchè è più importante la (per'altro ormai attesa) notizia sulla sempre più probabile estensione del programma STS che non un ritardo del Constellation.

Sull'estensione (fino all'uscita della notizia che citi) sembrava esserci stata una battuta d'arresto dopo la pubblicazione di un documento "di budget" che non prevedeva i $$ necessari..

Sono curioso su cosa faranno le missioni aggiuntive se l'estensione verrà approvata: una è quella che trasporterà AMS, per le altre solo missioni logistiche?

[GioFX]

Sull'estensione (fino all'uscita della notizia che citi) sembrava esserci stata una battuta d'arresto dopo la pubblicazione di un documento "di budget" che non prevedeva i $$ necessari..

Sono curioso su cosa faranno le missioni aggiuntive se l'estensione verrà approvata: una è quella che trasporterà AMS, per le altre solo missioni logistiche?

E' vero che alcune notizie facevano (e fanno tuttora) pensare a che non decidano per un allungamento del programma... ma era nell'aria e sembra ora confermato che in ogni caso il programma Constellation subirà un ulteriore nuovo ritardo di 15-18 mesi, principalmente per esigenze di riprogettazione e altro... questo darebbe il via libera definitivo all'allungamento dell'STS.

E' molto probabile infatti che il budget del cosidetto piano "Soyuz waiver" non permetta l'acquisto di voli Soyuz in quantità tale da garantire il minimo uso dell'ISS da parte americana, europea e giapponese per tutto il tempo necessario a coprire il gap tra l'ultimo volo Shuttle ed il primo commerciale di Constellation.

Per quanto riguarda i "payload" in effetti immagino che la gran parte saranno voli ULF (logistici)... è da vedere nei prossimi mesi.

[Rand]

E' vero che alcune notizie facevano (e fanno tuttora) pensare a che non decidano per un allungamento del programma... ma era nell'aria e sembra ora confermato che in ogni caso il programma Constellation subirà un ulteriore nuovo ritardo di 15-18 mesi, principalmente per esigenze di riprogettazione e altro... questo darebbe il via libera definitivo all'allungamento dell'STS.

Imho Ares I è sulla strada della cancellazione, troppi ritardi e problemi per un vettore normale. In quel caso sarà interessante vedere se si andrà verso:

- EELV + Ares V
- Una "direct-izzazione" dell'architettura (doppio lancio con vettori medio-grossi invece che con uno enorme e uno piccolo).
- Solo EELV

Per quanto riguarda i "payload" in effetti immagino che la gran parte saranno voli ULF (logistici)... è da vedere nei prossimi mesi.

L'unica altra cosa "diversa" che mi viene in mente è il trasporto di un MPLM adattato a rimanere permanentemente nello spazio.

[GioFX]

Imho Ares I è sulla strada della cancellazione, troppi ritardi e problemi per un vettore normale. In quel caso sarà interessante vedere se si andrà verso:

- EELV + Ares V
- Una "direct-izzazione" dell'architettura (doppio lancio con vettori medio-grossi invece che con uno enorme e uno piccolo).
- Solo EELV


Certo che se cancellano Ares I son cazzi.... cmq io propenderei pià per un super-EELV, ma è ancora presto per fare ipotesi.

[GioFX]

NOTA: prego vogliate non considerare i prossimi post vuoti... ho sbagliato thread.

:D

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[Rand]

Richard Harmon (vedere qui (http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showpost.php?p=25045206&postcount=236) per sapere chi è) si è dichiarato (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/6350114.html)* colpevole:

Prosecutor: Faulty part could have destroyed shuttle

A Friendswood man pleaded guilty Monday to selling NASA a space shuttle part that prosecutors allege could have endangered astronauts’ lives.

Richard J. Harmon, 60, the former owner of Cornerstone Machining Inc. in Alvin, pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of fraud involving a space vehicle part. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes scheduled Harmon’s sentencing for June when he could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Lewis presented the judge with a written summary of Harmon’s crime. It stated that Harmon, who had worked in the aerospace industry for decades, subcontracted to build two fasteners for $18,795 each and agreed to meet all precise specifications or let authorities know about any changes.

The fasteners would hold cargo to the space shuttle and prosecutors allege if a defect had caused the cargo to come lose in ascent into orbit, “it would almost certainly have resulted in the destruction of the shuttle.”

Harmon’s shop was making one of the fasteners when a cutting machine made a gash in the aluminum, and Harmon agreed to have it welded over.

He did not tell the contractor that hired him, Spacehab Inc., about that mistake, Lewis’ written fact scenario stated. Harmon also failed to inform the lead contractor, Lockheed, and NASA.

The weld caused the fastener to lose 40 percent of its strength, the government claimed. “Ultimately Lockheed scrapped the (part) because the gash and weld created too great a risk that it would fail in flight and destroy the space shuttle,” Lewis’ fact scenario concluded.

Harmon seemed unrepentant in court. He told the judge that the facts as presented by the government seemed to be coming from someone else trying to cover their own mistakes. Harmon said he tried call someone to explain the error one evening but didn’t reach any one.

Chip Lewis, Harmon’s attorney, said his client was under pressure from Spacehab to speed up his work. Lewis said an internal report showed that the part could have been used once, so his client feels he was made a scapegoat.

Lewis said Harmon would still like to work in the aerospace industry, and the judge said if he applies for jobs he must tell employers in writing about this fraud.

* se qualcuno mi conferma che "pleaded guilty" vuol dire quello è meglio :D

[Octane]

Richard Harmon (vedere qui (http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showpost.php?p=25045206&postcount=236) per sapere chi è) si è dichiarato (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/6350114.html)* colpevole:



* se qualcuno mi conferma che "pleaded guilty" vuol dire quello è meglio :D

anche il mio dizionario (Hazon) conferma. :D

to plead [pli:d] pass.p.p. pleaded ['pli:d?d] pled [pled] v.tr. 1 (dir.) patrocinare, perorare, difendere (una causa): to plead the cause of unemployed, perorare la causa dei disoccupati 2 (dir.) dichiararsi: to plead guilty, confessarsi reo, ammettere la propria colpa; to plead not guilty, dichiararsi innocente, protestare la propria innocenza

[Rand]

Ok, grazie della conferma :)

[Rand]

- Foto (http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/2009/03/so-how-are-solid-rocket-boosters.html) del recupero degli SRB.
- Foto (http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/2009/03/space-shuttle-flight-simulator.html) del simulatore usato per l'addestramento degli astronauti.
- Manca (http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/2009/02/external-tanksolid-rocket-booster-stack.html) qualcosa :O :D

[GioFX]

Manca qualcosa :O :D

un grosso coso con le ali?

:D

[Rand]

http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/wedge-of-turbulent-flow-behind-modified-tile.jpg

http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/region-of-increased-heating.jpg

In an experiment, one of space shuttle Discovery’s exterior heat tiles was deliberately altered and monitored during the shuttle’s high-speed return to Earth on Saturday. Data was collected to help understand airflow, and provided information for engineers designing the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft. One tile on the bottom of the shuttle’s left wing, about 10 feet behind the leading edge, included a 0.25-inch-high ridge that was expected to cause the airflow to go from smooth to turbulent, causing a rise in temperature of the tiles behind the altered tile. A Navy plane flew below Discovery as it returned home, monitoring the shuttle with an infrared camera. What did the experiment reveal?

Engineers were looking to better understand how smooth, laminar airflow, which provides a thin layer of insulation during peak heating, can change to the disturbed, turbulent flow — called boundary layer transition –which can cause downstream temperatures to climb, possibly affecting aerodynamics and causing damage.

A Navy P-3 Orion aircraft flying over the Gulf of Mexico captured infrared images of the shuttle’s underside when the orbiter had slowed to about 8.5 times the speed of sound. The temperature data and infrared imagery confirmed that the airflow was changed by the modified tile. The insulating layer of air changed to turbulent between mach 12 and 14. That, in turn, caused a rise in the temperatures of downstream tiles, but not as much as was expected.

The tiles in that area of the wing normally experience maximum temperatures of 815-870 degrees C (1,500 to 1,600 degrees F) when the re-entry airflow across the wing is smooth. The preliminary data that NASA received indicated the maximum temperature experienced by the “protuberance tile” was around 1090 degrees C (2,000 F), somewhat less than expected. If those measurements are confirmed, engineers may request a slightly higher protuberance for a future flight.

As for the large area of turbulence seen in the top P-3 image, engineers said said the image likely reflected a “typical” shuttle boundary layer transition during peak heating.

Engineers reported the protuberance tile looked normal and undamaged on the runway after Discovery’s landing, although superficial markings were seen on several downstream tiles. No such markings were seen on tiles behind a protruding gap filler that was spotted during an on-orbit inspection on one of Discovery’s elevons.

The shuttle’s transition from smooth to turbulent flow occurs naturally as the spacecraft slows down, typically at velocities around mach 8, or eight times the speed of sound, about 20 minutes after atmospheric entry begins. In some cases, however, the transition can occur earlier than that because of surface roughness or defects in the heat shield.

For example, a protruding tile spacer called a “gap filler” can shake loose during launch and extend up into the airflow, triggering an early, asymmetric boundary layer transition during re-entry. When that happens, the shuttle’s aerodynamics can be affected and downstream tiles can be subjected to more extreme heating.

During shuttle mission STS-28 in 1989, the boundary layer “tripped” 15 minutes after entry, at around mach 18. During shuttle mission STS-50 in 1992, one side of the shuttle’s belly went turbulent more than a minute ahead of the other side, causing a change in aerodynamics that prompted autopilot flight control inputs.

This experiment that could lead to improved heat shield designs for the Orion spacecraft which will bring astronauts to the ISS and the Moon, along with providing insights into shuttle aerodynamics.

Fonte (http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/30/experiment-performed-on-shuttle-heat-tiles-during-discoverys-re-entry/)

[Rand]

Interessante articolo su lanci Shuttle con stadio Centaur previsti per il 1986 prima dell'incidente del Challenger (copiato perché c'è qualche problema con l'encoding della pagina, probabilmente si sono persi molti apostrofi per strada):

Flights of the ‘Death Star’ (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2005/10/flights-of-the-death-star/)
October 26th, 2005 by Chris Bergin

John Young called it the 'Death Star’. Behind the dark humour, however, lay real concern for the then-chief of NASA's astronaut corps. Even with an increasingly confident outlook on the Shuttle's capabilities at the dawn of 1986, Young instinctively knew that the STS-61F and 61G flights would be two of the riskiest ever attempted by the reusable spacecraft.

Fellow astronauts Rick Hauck and Dave Walker, who would command the two missions, echoed his concern. As with any flight, Hauck said in a January 2004 interview, if everything goes well, its not risky. Its when things start to go wrong that you wonder how close you are to the edge of disaster .
The loss of Challenger during ascent and Columbia upon re-entry have demonstrated how fine the line is between triumph and tragedy; a line and risk that every astronaut knows and accepts before climbing aboard. Yet Hauck and Walkers flights, both scheduled to occur a few days apart in May 1986, would carry additional danger. This was partly due to the important scientific payloads their crews would truck into low-Earth orbit a probe called Ulysses to explore the Suns poles on Haucks flight, followed by a spacecraft dubbed Galileo to study Jupiter on Walkers mission which were both equipped with controversial nuclear powerplants.
Needless to say, the implications of a launch accident and the consequences of depositing highly-radioactive plutonium dioxide across eastern Florida did not bear thinking about. The risk, though, was compounded still further by the fact that, attached to the base of each nuclear hot potato in the Shuttles payload bays was a thin-skinned, liquid-fed rocket that many astronauts and even managers had condemned as unsafe and unacceptable for use in conjunction with a manned spacecraft. Measuring 30 feet long and 14 feet wide, it was called the Centaur-G Prime and, for Rick Hauck, it was his baby.
Furthermore, just like a baby, it was both temperamental and unpredictable.
I was assigned to be the Astronaut Project Officer for Centaur, an upper-stage rocket thats very thin-skinned, he said. Its pressure-stabilised, which means if its not pressurised, its going to collapse by its own weight. If it were not pressurised, but suspended, and you pushed on it with your finger, the tank walls would ˜give and youd see that youre flexing the metal! Nicknamed a ˜balloon tank because its rigidity thus depended on being fully-pressurised, the Centaur had long been viewed warily by NASA, whose general safety rule of thumb on the Shuttle dictated that no single failure should be capable of endangering the spacecraft or its crew.
The Centaur-G Prime did more than that. Much of its pressure-regulation hardware, disturbingly, was non-redundant without a backup facility and, worse, a failure of its internal bulkhead had the potential to rupture both its volatile liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks. Additionally, it was recognised that the sheer mass of its propellants, which totalled close to 45,000 pounds, could cause ˜sloshing and a myriad of other controllability problems that could hinder Hauck or Walker if the need arose to make an emergency landing shortly after liftoff.
In spite of the hazards, the Centaurs key advantage was that, pound for pound, its liquid propellants provided considerably more oomph to push large payloads out of low-Earth orbit and en-route to other planets than solid-fuelled rockets could achieve. It was also well-known that liquid-fed boosters generally produced a much ˜gentler thrust than the notoriously harsh impulse of solids.
Still, the safety concerns rightly overshadowed and ultimately overwhelmed these benefits. The Shuttle was obligated to launch Ulysses and Galileo, explained Hauck, and [NASA] needed the most powerful rockets they could have [and] at some point the decision was made to use the Centaur, which was never meant to be involved in human spaceflight. Thats important because rockets that are associated with human spaceflight have certain levels of redundancy and certain design specifications that are supposed to make them more reliable.
Clearly, Centaur did not come from that heritage, so, Number One, that was going to be an issue in itself, but Number Two is [that] if youve got a Return to Launch Site abort or transatlantic abort and youve got to land, and youve got a rocket filled with liquid oxygen [and] liquid hydrogen in the cargo bay, youve got to get rid of [it], so that means youve got to dump it while youre flying through this contingency abort. To make sure that it can dump safely, you need to have redundant parallel dump valves, helium systems that control the dump valves [and] software that makes sure contingencies can be taken care of.
Then, when you land, here youre sitting with the Centaur in the bay that you havent been able to dump all of it, so youre venting gaseous hydrogen out this side [and] gaseous oxygen out that side and this is just not a good idea! To support the new rocket on 61F and 61G, both Challenger and Atlantis underwent a series of lengthy modifications costing around five million dollars apiece which included extra plumbing to load and vent the Centaurs propellants and control panels in the flight deck to monitor its performance. As NASAs newest orbiter, Atlantis had been made Centaur-capable during her initial construction and was destined to spend the first few months of 1986 out at Pad 39A undergoing validation tests of the new hardware.
Following her return from 51L on February 3rd 1986, Challenger was expected to receive the Centaur modifications before being transferred to Pad 39B, while sister ship Discovery was earmarked for similar upgrades to support Department of Defense missions from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. During typical, pre-launch loading operations, the liquid propellants would have been fed through plumbing ˜tapped into the Shuttles main propulsion system feedlines. Emergency dumping vents were situated on either side of the aft fuselage and close to the vertical stabiliser tailfin, none of which filled Hauck or Walker with confidence due to the risk of leakages or explosions.
In fact, doubts over the reliability of the Centaur-G Prime flying aboard the Shuttle had already, in the autumn of 1981, obliged NASA to cancel it and opt to place Ulysses and Galileo onto ˜safer though less powerful solid-fuelled Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) boosters. For the exceptionally-large Galileo, which comprised both a Jupiter orbiter and atmospheric-entry probe, the swap from Centaur to IUS meant that its journey time to the giant planet would almost double to four-and-a-half years and most likely require the mission to be split into two ˜halves.
Predictably, Galileos pricetag soared as a result, peaking at close to a billion dollars, until Congress pressed NASA in late 1982 to resume work on the Shuttle-borne Centaur and reduce the Jupiter travel time to around two-and-a-half years. Not only Galileo, but also Ulysses, required close encounters with the giant planet the latter as a means of altering its trajectory to rendezvous with the Suns poles and both missions were duly allocated to the same, week-long launch window in mid-May 1986. Haucks crew would liftoff from Pad 39B aboard Challenger on the 15th, followed by Walkers team from adjacent Pad 39A aboard Atlantis on the 20th.
The two flights each had scarcely an hour available to them in which to launch and, in order to minimise weight, both would carry just four astronauts: Hauck was joined by Pilot Roy Bridges and Mission Specialists Mike Lounge and Dave Hilmers, while Walkers crewmates were Pilot Ron Grabe and Mission Specialists Norm Thagard and James ˜Ox van Hoften. Additionally, the two-day-long Death Star flights were headed for lower-than-normal, 105-nautical-mile-high orbits because, said Hauck, you need the performance to get the Centaur up because it was so heavy .
Throughout the second half of 1985 and into the spring of 1986, in addition to their rigorous training regimes, Hauck and Walker found themselves frequently questioning their own judgement over how many potential failure modes and problems they could live with. In early January 1986, Hauck recalled, we were working an issue to do with redundancy in the helium actuation system for the liquid oxygen [and] liquid hydrogen dump valves and it was clear that the [Shuttle management] was willing to compromise on the margins in the propulsive force being provided by the pressurised helium. We were very concerned about it.
We had discussions about it with the technical people, but we went to a [review] board to argue why this was not a good idea to compromise on this feature. The board turned down the request. I went back to the crew office and said to my crew, in essence, ˜NASA is doing business differently from the way it has in the past. Safety is being compromised and, if any of you want to take yourself off this flight, I will support you. Two or three weeks later, Challenger blew up. Now, there is no direct correlation between my experience and Challenger, but it seemed to me that there was a willingness to compromise on some of the things that we shouldnt compromise on .
Years later, Hauck remained undecided as to whether or not he would have refused, himself, to fly 61F, but admitted that the Shuttle management were taking unacceptable risks in the months leading up to Challengers fateful launch. Only days after the tragedy, any lingering doubts were resolved for him. The Kennedy Space Centers Safety Office refused to approve advanced processing of the first Centaur-G Prime, citing insufficient verification of hazard controls from both NASA and the boosters contractor, General Dynamics. Additional safety concerns, and cost overruns to the tune of $100 million, ultimately led to the projects cancellation in June 1986.
Fortunately, a few years later, the Galileo and Ulysses missions went ahead, reverting to the less-powerful IUS to get them successfully though not without incident, and requiring considerably longer journey times to their celestial targets. History has shown us that both achieved considerably more than expected and truly revolutionised humanitys understanding of both our parent star and our planetary big brother, Jupiter.


Stabilizzato con la pressione, peso talmente al limite da dover limitare i consumabili al minimo indispensabile (equipaggio ridotto, missione di 2 giorni e orbita bassa), idrogeno e ossigeno liquidi come carico e probabilmente SSME al 109% :eek:

[Rand]

Un set (http://www.flickr.com/photos/forthebirds/sets/649457/) di foto scattate da personale del KSC

- Il KSC è ricco di simpatici animaletti dentati:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3383/3433395564_c13f7e6c67_b.jpg

- Un SSME:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3629/3425279010_852afb4528_b.jpg

- Ruota dello Shuttle:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3588/3432565845_43a113fb54_b.jpg

- Attacco inferiore ET/Shuttle:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/28809456_d6c8057eed_o.jpg

- Uno dei Crawler:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/3432579325_427bfb9263_b.jpg

Fonte (http://www.forumastronautico.it/index.php?topic=10440.0)

[Rand]

STS-27:

http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/119/119graphics/fd13/27_land2.jpg
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/119/119graphics/fd13/27_land3.jpg
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2999/indexphpactiondlattachtt.jpg

"I will never forget, we hung the (robot) arm over the right wing, we panned it to the (damage) location and took a look and I said to myself, 'we are going to die,'" recalled legendary shuttle commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson. "There was so much damage. I looked at that stuff and I said, 'oh, holy smokes, this looks horrible, this looks awful.'"
"As I moved the arm lower the camera picked up streaks of white," he wrote in "Riding Rockets." "There was no mistaking what they were. ... As I continued to drop the arm lower we could see that at least one tile had been completely blasted from the fuselage. The white streaking grew thicker and faded aft beyond the view of the camera. It appeared that hundreds of tiles had been damaged and the scars extended outboard toward the carbon-composite panels on the leading edge of the wing. Had one of those been penetrated? If so, se were dead men floating."
"I knew we would start developing a split (between right and left wing elevon positions) if we had excessive drag over on the right side. The automatic system would try to trim it out with the elevons. That is one of the things we always watched on re-entry anyhow, because ... if you had half a degree of trim, something was wrong, you had a bunch of something going on if you had even half a degree. Normally, you wouldn't see even a quarter of a degree of difference on the thing.

"So I knew that that's what I was going to see if it started to go," Gibson said. "And therefore, that told me that I'd have at least 60 seconds to tell mission control what I thought of their analysis."
"The damage was much worse than any of us had expected," Mullane wrote. "Technicians would eventually count 700 damaged tiles extending along half of Atlantis's length. It was by far the greatest heat shield damage recorded to date."

La grossa quantità di danni è stata provocata dal distacco di un pezzo di rivestimento degli SRB.

[Rand]

Wired ha selezionato (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/humans-in-space-10-amazing-spacewalk-photos/) 10 immagini "notevoli" di passeggiate spaziali:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/05/nasanas5521706126460.jpg

Rusty Schweickart stands outside Apollo 9's Lunar Module. (Apollo 9 didn't go to the moon. It was an Earth-orbiting testing mission.)

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/05/nasanas5523947127543.jpg

Bruce McCandless II took the first untethered space walk in February 1984. Here we see him from Challenger, floating above Earth.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/05/nasanas5523599127427.jpg

Richard Hieb, Thomas Akers, and Pierre Thuot hold on to the 4.5 ton INTELSAT VI communications satellite during a 1992 mission.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/05/nasanas5524088127589.jpg

G. David Low practiced handling heavy stuff in space by using Peter J.K. Wisoff as a stand-in for Hubble components in 1993.

La missione della terza foto è STS-49, che detiene diversi record tra cui le due EVA più lunghe (8 ore e 29 minuti e 7 ore e 45 minuti) e la prima EVA con 3 astronauti. Senza contare che hanno catturato un satellite da 4.5 tonnellate a mano :D

[Octane]

La missione della terza foto è STS-49, che detiene diversi record tra cui le due EVA più lunghe (8 ore e 29 minuti e 7 ore e 45 minuti) e la prima EVA con 3 astronauti. Senza contare che hanno catturato un satellite da 4.5 tonnellate a mano :D

neanche male! Fa solo una tonnellata e mezza di massa a testa! :eek:

[Rand]

Ho appena finito di leggere

http://miguellopes.files.wordpress.com/2006/10/10645941.jpg

From Publishers Weekly
With a testosterone-fueled swagger and a keen eye for particulars, Mullane takes readers into the high-intensity, high-stress world of the shuttle astronaut in this rough-hewn yet charming yarn of low-rent antics, bureaucratic insanity and transcendent beauty. Mullane opens this tale face down on a doctor's table awaiting a colorectal exam that will determine his fitness for astronaut training. "I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses," he writes, setting the tone for the crude and often hilarious story that follows. Chosen as a trainee in 1978, Mullane, a Vietnam vet, quickly finds himself at odds with the buttoned-up post-Apollo NASA world of scientists, technocrats and civilian astronauts he describes as "tree-huggers, dolphin friendly fish eaters, vegetarians, and subscribers to the New York Times." He holds female astronauts in special disregard, though he later grudgingly acknowledges the achievement and heroism of both the civilians and women. The book hits its stride with Mullane's space adventures: a difficult takeoff, the shift into zero gravity, his first view of the Earth from space: "To say the view was overwhelmingly beautiful would be an insult to God." (Feb. 14)

Se sapete un po' di inglese è decisamente consigliato.

[Rand]

Articolo di nasaspaceflight.com su DIRECT:

DIRECT issue rebuttal over NASA analysis of Jupiter launch vehicle (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/05/direct-rebuttal-nasa-analysis-jupiter-launch-vehicle/)

he team behind the alternative exploration architecture known as DIRECT have released a rebuttal document, countering claims made by NASA’s Constellation Program, ahead of the Blue Ribbon review for human space flight. The document specifically targets a series of claims made by a NASA team in May and October of 2007, which found the Jupiter launch vehicle to be unable to achieve claimed performance targets.

History of DIRECT:

DIRECT is an alternative architecture, proposed to replace Ares I and Ares V with a single “Jupiter” vehicle, capable of performing both roles.

The DIRECT approach claims to offer significant improvements in performance, schedule, and budget expenditure - when compared to Ares - by relying more on the existing technology and components of the space shuttle and EELV

The DIRECT proposal has its roots in the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) studies (1990s) to design a shuttle-based heavy lift cargo vehicle to compliment the space shuttle. Known as the National Launch System (NLS), the concept was deemed to have significant merit - before being deleted due to budgetary concerns.

In 2006, a group of engineers and members of the space community revived and modernized the concept, calling it DIRECT.

The proposal was first presented in October 2006, followed by a major revision in September 2007, known as DIRECT 2.0. The team claims to be comprised of eight public representatives and 62 NASA and contractor engineers - who work on the project on their own time.

ASA Analysis Background:

As DIRECT gained attention via two AIAA papers, and presentations at the ISDC, before MSFC performed two reviews of the DIRECT 2.0 architecture in May and October of 2007 - which found serious issues with DIRECT’s performance and capabilities.

“Analysis of the DIRECT architecture shows significant performance shortfall in assessed capability,” noted the October, 07 analysis.

“The DIRECT architecture aggressively estimates its stage dry mass predictions, which results in optimistic in-space performance. Consequently, the Direct 2.0 would likely be a Three Vehicle Launch Solution Mission to accomplish the Project Constellation Payload Requirements with NASA design margins, ground rules and assumptions.

“Assessed performance has improved from May 2007 EOR-LOR, but still fails to meet minimum requirements by at least 50 percent of needed Lander Payload.”

In order to back up these claims, NASA commissioned a ‘Team B’ review to attempt to design and fly a DIRECT lunar mission using NASA tools and specifications. Their results showed significantly larger masses and lower performance predictions, than those claimed by DIRECT.

“DIRECT currently unsuitable for its proposed goal of replacing the Ares I/V architecture to carry out the earth-to-TLI transportation functions for the Constellation Programs,” noted the review.

The analysis also attacks the infrastructure and development of the DIRECT vehicles, specifically DIRECT’s claimed redesign of the External Tank vs. Ares I’s clean sheet upper stage.

“Assessment of design would lead to major redesign, development and qualification of Mod ET Core for Jupiter 232 missions. Predicted touch labor of Ares 1 Upper Stage estimated to be significantly less than current ET touch labor.

“Examined approaches like this in the past 20 years: Concluded that this effort incurs significant expense and development with marginally applicable STS ET heritage.

“The Jupiter common core requires a new: Main Propulsion System, thrust structure, avionics, forward LOX tank structure and a payload shroud, substantial intertank/LH2 modifications, and a stack integration effort.

The October 07 analysis’ final major criticism of DIRECT referenced Ares’ operational safety and simplicity.

“DIRECT launch architecture requires increased number of spacecraft separations and dockings for all phases, increasing risk Separation, flip around and docking of Orion to Altair Rendezvous and docking of Orion-Altair stack to first EDS pre-TLI burn. DIRECT shows a 1/1400 PLOC for Jupiter 232 Lunar/Mission.

DIRECT’s Rebuttal:

DIRECT’s response to NASA’s analysis is forthcoming via a 100+ page rebuttal document that deals with the claims and explains why the criticisms are flawed - according to DIRECT. *CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION*

a47The document centers around the allegation that DIRECT was significantly misinterpreted by NASA’s analysis teams in an attempt to discredit the proposal.

“NASA’s October 2007 analysis of DIRECT, on the surface, appears to be a carefully executed analysis of the DIRECT architecture and its central launch vehicle, Jupiter,” notes the rebuttal document.

“However, a closer examination of the document reveals significant flaws in the evaluation of DIRECT that sets up a scenario where DIRECT would inevitably look inferior when compared to Ares.

“The errors are so numerous that the only conclusion possible is that this document was not a true analysis, but rather an attempt to discredit the DIRECT architecture.”

DIRECT claims that NASA’s inability to match the DIRECT team’s claimed performance hinges on the arbitrary mass increase of the EDS (Earth Departure Stage) by ‘Team B’.

“For Every 1 kg Upper Stage Growth, 3 kg Less Payload Delivered through TLI. Arbitrarily increasing the mass of the Upper Stage penalizes the performance of the entire system 3-fold.

“On pages 55 & 56 of NASA’s Analysis, a breakdown of the mass of the Upper Stage shows NASA’s ‘Case #2 - Team B’ design methodology using INTROS, results in a 17,797kg difference in burnout mass for the Upper Stage; 23,062 kg vs. 40,859 kg - a 77 percent performance penalty.

“A penalty applied to the Upper Stage mass of nearly 18mT results in a net reduction of EDS lunar performance by nearly 36mT.”

DIRECT contends that this mass increase is due to the use of a NASA design tool that does not assume the Centaur-based components of DIRECT’s upper stage.

“NASA’s Upper Stage was designed using the NASA-developed “INTROS” tool,” claims the rebuttal. “While this is based on heritage data, this tool has never been utilized in the production of any flying vehicle to date. Boeing did not utilize the tool for its Delta-IV and Lockheed Martin did not utilize the tool for the Atlas V - the two most modern US launchers.

“NASA’s analysis (also) ignores DIRECT’s plan to use a Common Bulkhead design for the Jupiter Upper Stage.”

The DIRECT team also attempt to back up their claims that the External Tank (ET) would only have to undergo minor redesign - which is an area of contention due to claims DIRECT ignore the testing requirements any changes to the ETs require - by noting the “minor” claim is comparative to the “major” changes required by Ares I and Ares V.

“It is worth noting that the requirement to build two new SRB designs, a vast new 10m Core Stage, two new Upper Stages and two completely separate production and launch processing infrastructures to support both Ares I - and then Ares V - would certainly qualify as a “major” undertaking,” DIRECT claim - adding they would also save billions in development costs.

“In that single context, it might be accurate to describe DIRECT’s plans as comparatively ‘minor’.

“Development costs for Jupiter-120 are approximately $5,000m lower than Ares I. Development costs for Jupiter-232 are a further $9,000m lower than Ares V. Operations costs for two very different Ares vehicles are approx. $3,100m higher per year than for the common-core Jupiter’s. Total DIRECT lifecycle savings thru 2020 are greater than $19,000m.”

To address NASA’s last major criticism concerning safety and operations, DIRECT points out that the risk calculations have been easily skewed, and are essentially subjective.

“There is a ‘time factor’ at work also which severely skews NASA’s conjecture. The Jupiter’s LOC (Loss Of Crew) and LOM (Loss Of Mission) figures were calculated in late October 2007,” DIRECT claim. “This date coincides with the Ares I Integrated System Technical Interchange Meeting (IS-TIM) on November 8.

“The design of Ares I has not changed significantly since that time, only the methodology for calculating the risk has altered since then. Somehow Ares I has doubled its LOC claims to “1/2400″ - according to NASA, yet the Ares I still uses all the same engines and stages.”

However, it appears DIRECT completely ignore the central claim by Constellation that their first stage SRB has obvious safety benefits when compared to Jupiter’s “numerous moving parts” in its first stage liquid engines. DIRECT also admit they are still awaiting new analysis.

“At time of writing, DIRECT is still awaiting results of a new analysis and expects similar improvements as Ares,” the rebuttal admits.

DIRECT claim that they would have lower total mission risk due to its capability to return safety systems that have been stripped of Orion due to mass issues.

“Because of DIRECT’s surplus performance, all of the capabilities deleted from Orion in the Zero Base Vehicle (ZBV) studies could be added back in,” they claim.

“If those systems can be reintegrated, it would dramatically improve the overall mission LOM figures, which represent a far larger portion of the total risks than just the launch.”

DIRECT anticipates being heavily involved in the upcoming Blue Ribbon review for human space flight - which will include an evaluation on NASA’s current exploration direction - and the team will be presenting their latest proposals at the Orlando ISDC conference at the end of May and will also have representatives there able to discuss the latest evolutions of the proposal.

[Rand]

Great Expectations (http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog.blog/posts/post_1243367045697.html)

First of all, thanks to all who wondered how I have been doing. It has been a very busy month and I'm afraid that blogging fell off my "to do" list. The outlook for summer is also extremely busy but I will try to update frequently as I have the time!

Yesterday we rightly spent the day remembering those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country and for freedom. It is, as Lincoln said, altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. For our sake, not for theirs, to rededicate our lives, not to consecrate what they have done.

But yesterday, May 25, was another anniversary; in 1961 the young President of the United States boldly proposed that this nation should send a man to the moon and return him safely to the earth before the decade was out. That is a good thing to commemorate, too. Our nation achieved that goal and we still bask in the reflected glory of that achievement.

It is hard to remember, but within the life of those older than . . . 48 . . . that to "aim for the moon" was a code phrase for setting out to do the impossible. A quixotic task. Something that no serious person would attempt. Something guaranteed to fail because it was so patently impossible. Foolish, foolhardy, not worth attempting.

The nation just witnessed the repair and refurbishment of the Hubble Space Telescope. Moments of high drama, all carried out by human beings. A repetition of similar missions which transformed NASA's biggest flop into the most productive scientific instrument of our time. In retrospect it looked so, so very easy; and so, so very risk free. It was neither. Nor was it cheap.

As always there are a few critics out there that wish us to believe that such a mission was a waste of time and money, foolishness beyond description, risk undertaken for no good reason. They point out that if we were to take the money and resources spent on the Hubble servicing missions over the years we could have built a fleet of Hubble space telescopes.

Well, of course they are right. But they are also wrong. As Oscar Wilde once remarked, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Because the cost is not just dollars and cents. It is in the will and achievement of the nation. In 1990 the Hubble looked like the biggest failure in the history of space exploration. Coupled with the recent loss of Challenger and the grounding of the shuttle fleet for elusive hydrogen leaks, the agency was on the brink of being disbanded. Proposals to send people beyond low earth orbit were scuttled. The national mood was depressed. Dollars and cents aside, no one would suggest that NASA build another telescope, much less a fleet of them.

What a difference we see now. Hubble, like its namesake, has revolutionized cosmology. We understand our place in the cosmos in a much more profound way that we did before. It is hard to even understand how we could have been so limited before.

In 1905, a Swiss patent office clerk by the name of Albert Einstein had what has been called the "anno mirabilis" -- year of marvels -- when he published five papers that changed the world. Interestingly, the Nobel committee rewarded him with their prize in Physics for his paper on the photo-electric effect even though many think that the award would have been for his paper on relativity or one of the other subjects. The photo-electric effect is such a mundane topic in comparison. Yet, this is the basis for modern digital semiconductor electronics. Computers, cell phones, GPS receivers, digital television, and much more rely on what Einstein described so brilliantly in 1905. An nobody in 1905 could predict any of these devices. In fact, the US Commissioner of Patents stated very shortly before 1905 that everything which could be invented had already been invented. He proposed shutting down the US Patent Office for lack of future work.

In one of those landmark papers, Albert Einstein introduced a term called "the cosmological constant". He later felt that was his biggest mistake. In recent years, the Hubble Space Telescope collected information that indicates Einstein's cosmological constant may have been one of his greatest predictions. There is an unknown process at work in the universe that is very poorly understood. Cosmologists call it "dark energy" and do not understand it. But its observed properties seem to fit closely with the 'cosmological constant'.

If the HST had been labeled a failure in 1990 and never touched by the gloved hands of astronauts, it is unlikely - in the extreme - that future space telescopes would have been funded. After all, NASA was a flop, right? The accelerating expansion of the universe would have gone undiscovered for an untold period of time. The cosmological constant would still be regarded as Einstein's biggest mistake. And we would not be on the trail of uncovering the characteristics of enigmatic "dark energy".

So, in a hundred years from now, how will we solve the energy problem? Obviously all the inventions that can be invented already have been! And certainly we understand the universe perfectly well! And of course a whole fleet of Hubble Space Telescopes would have been built even if the first one was flawed!

Not.

The value of the human touch far surpasses the mere price of the journey.

4chr

[Rand]

123 Shuttle Launches STS 1-126 Flight 1-124 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv54hXsXcxg)

[Rand]

Spiegazioni sulla mitigazione della "thrust oscillation" sullo Shuttle e perché invece da problemi su Ares 1:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4505/indexphpactiondlattacht.jpg

Essentially, there is a thrust beam running athwart ship between the 2 SRB's between the LOX and LH2 tanks in the ET that attach to the SRB with gimbal joints. This is the upper attachment of the SRB's to the sides of the ET. As the SRB's begin to oscillate, the thrust beam begins to flex, as much as a quarter in each each way in tune with the changing frequency of the oscillations. This mitigates most of the problem, and the mass of the liquids in the ET absorb the remaining oscillations. Even so, every Shuttle crew member will tell you that until the SRB's burn out that it's a very rough ride. One has even said that he has to shut his mouth very tight to keep from having his shaking teeth bite his tongue.


The primary load-path for the SRB's thrust is actually up into the forward attachments, not the aft. The rear attachments are there more for stabilization than for transmitting the thrust into the stack.

The fwd attachments are in the area of the Intertank on the ET. Between them is a big I-Beam shaped 'girder' which is designed, firstly, to hold the SRB's very firmly in place. It is called the Thrust Beam. You can see it clearly in the attached cutaway image of the ET.

The Thrust Beam was specifically designed to take the vibration forces from both SRB's and absorb them into the beam itself. The Beam actually flexes inside the structure during flight by up to 6" because of the TO forces from the two SRB's.

So can you help me understand this?

Was the current TO issue caused by:
1) The switch from 4 segment to 5 segment booster


No. All SRB's have this issue to one degree or another from rocket models all the way up to these giant solids.

The specific frequency and amplitude of the effect changes depending on the exact specifications of the booster, and generally speaking, the larger the booster the greater the effects. But all SRB's have TO.

In this case the difference between the 4-, 5- and 5.5-segment boosters frequency is in the range of 3-4Hz, varying from around 13 to about 17Hz.

The amplitude is a factor of the total power of the booster. The 124second burn 4-seg has a total TO force of about 32,000lb. The 132sec 5-seg has about 38,000lb and the 116sec 5.5seg has over 42,000lb. Note the different burn times for these are due to the mixture, or 'grain' used and the shorter burn on the bigger 5.5seg booster means a significantly faster and more energetic burn producing a higher total thrust output throughout the burn.

2) The vehicle is less massive than the shuttle stack which makes the accelerations (vibrations) more dramatic

This is partially the case. The oscillation is damped down by the quantity of propellant its shoving around - the energy of the oscillation is dissipated more when there's a larger amount of liquid involved.

But cryogenic propellant tanking of any sort is always a pressure vessel - be it a Shuttle External Tank or an Ares-I Upper Stage. Because of that, the structure ends up being pretty rigid, so it still transmits a fairly large portion of the forces involved. So a larger physical tank & propellant load alone doesn't fix the problems.

3) Putting the vehicle directly on top of the booster instead of attached to a tank which is attached to the spacecraft with latteral loads


4) Some combination of 1, 2 & 3

Bingo. This is the main issue. The two 4-segment Shuttle SRB's together produce a lot more total oscillation forces than Ares-I's single 5- or 5.5-segment SRB ever will. But it doesn't suffer the same issues because in the design is a flexible joint between the SRB and the tanking/crewed elements which allows the forces to be mostly dissipated.

Most of the forces of the Shuttle SRB's are transmitted into the ET at the Forward Attachment Joint only (Aft joint is there mostly just for stabilization to stop the SRB 'wagging around' - Challenger showed us precisely what happens when that joint fails).

These mountings consist of a ball & socket joint allowing the SRB to move around slightly while still transmitting all their power into the structure of the ET.

Then, connecting the two joints inside the Intertank section is a large "Thrust Beam" structure approximately 3ft thick and 2ft wide. While helping make the Intertank area a bit more rigid and preventing the SRB's pushing together or pulling apart, this beam is also designed specifically to absorb the oscillation forces from the SRB's and to release them safely in the form of a powerful, but harmless, flexing of this beam. See the simplified drawing attached to get an idea of what it does.

This huge beam flexes in response to SRB TO by up to 1/4" in flight absorbing almost all of the dangerous oscillation forces.

Interestingly, Ariane-V and Titan-3 & 4 - the only other rockets in the world with boosters even close to the same class as Shuttle - all have such flex-joints for their SRB's too - but none don't have a similar thrust beam. In-flight, all three experience significant TO forces which are transmitted up to their payloads - although the payloads themselves can be isolated where required - for a noticeable payload penalty.


Ares-I on the other hand does not have any such flexible joint. Nor does it have any structure which can safely absorb the oscillation forces.

The Ares-I Interstage (and Frustum etc) is all hard-bolted directly on top of the SRB. And the Interstage isn't going to be able to flex much because in-flight it is already the weak-point in such a tall rocket where bending loads must be prevented from making the vehicle snap in half.

Above that, the Upper Stage is again a pressurized, so very rigid, vessel.

And the Crew Spacecraft is bolted on top of that.

Because you can't put a flex-joint between the SRB and the rest of the structure as Shuttle has, this arrangement means that all of the forces produced by TO are transmitted all the way up through the entire vehicle all the way to the crew.

Some other form of mitigation therefore has to be found, different from Shuttle.


Some other SRB-based rockets do already exist (none in this size and power class, and none even trying to fly humans) which have mitigated this effect previously (Pegasus, Taurus, Athena, GSLV), but every one of the mitigation efforts so far implemented has cost a significant weight penalty in the region of 15-20% of the total mass they are trying to isolate.

Ares-I has been pretty slim on performance margin since switching to 5-seg/J-2X, so any mitigation which will cost a lot of weight. Just a few tons of payload penalty would eat up all of its remaining margins so more 'traditional' mitigation methods can't be utilized here.

With Aries V going to 5.5 segment SRBs, I have to wonder if an Aries I with a 5.5 segment first stage would make the TO issue better or worse?

It will increase the force of the oscillation, but will change the frequency. Exactly how this will affect the system still needs to be analyzed, but they are working hard to get the TO frequency away from the harmonic resonance of the Upper Stage and the vehicle as a whole - which is somewhere around 13-14Hz. If those frequencies ever converge they would reinforce each other and that means multiplying the effects - not good.

So changing to 5.5-seg is a two edged sword. More power in the oscillation effect is bad. A higher oscillation frequency is good.

[Octane]

Niente male una flessione interna fino a 6"!
(sono oltre 15 cm!! :eek: )

[Rand]

Un paio di video di abort dello Shuttle:

- STS-51-F - Abort to Orbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFyCcXBeKAw&feature=related)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Space_Shuttle_abort_panel.jpg

- Tutti i pad abort (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aoGXb25lsU) dello Space Shuttle.

[Rand]

First Space Shuttle Launch - STS-1 (in Youtube HD) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0mftrFD7X4)

[Rand]

Prosegue il lavoro per massimizzare la quantità di materiale trasportata dall'ultimo volo dello Shuttle (STS-133), che vede l'istallazione del Pressurized Logistics Module, ovvero l'MPLM modificato per rimanere permanentemente sulla ISS:

STS-133: Final Space Shuttle flight baselined into FDRD by NASA (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/07/sts-133-final-space-shuttle-flight-baselined-into-fdrd/)

After nearly thirty years of Space Shuttle operations - with only eight flights remaining on the Space Shuttle Program manifest - NASA’s Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) has officially baselined the STS-133 mission into the Flight Definition and Requirements Document (FDRD) - a mission that, at this time, is expected to be the final flight of the Space Shuttle.

Opening Information:

Right now, STS-133 - along with STS-134 - is currently baselined to launch No Earlier Than July 29, 2010 on orbiter Endeavour. However, the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) and the International Space Station Program (ISSP) have, for some months now, been discussing the various options available to them as the SSP comes to an end.

As a result, the two programs have tentatively agreed to swap the order of the final two manifested missions - flying STS-134 on Endeavour in July 2010 and slipping STS-133 into mid-September on Discovery.

This process of swapping the flight order will be accomplished via a Change Request (CR) to the PRCB. The CR, which is expected to be submitted sometime this month, will enable mission planners and flight engineers to adequately prepare for each mission without excessive overlap in mission planning and flight production protection.

In all, the CR has to be approved by October 5, 2009 in order to avoid flight production confliction and ensure that the two missions can meet their respective launch dates.

However, the CR is expected to be approved long before October 5 as both the SSP and ISSP are determined to maximizing up-mass potential on the final Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

As such, NASA is considering STS-133 as the final flight of the Space Shuttle. As a result, STS-133 will be the 134th and final flight of the Shuttle and the 39th and last voyage of Discovery.

The mission, if launched in mid-September 2010, will use External Tank 138, Solid Rocket Booster set BI-145, and Reusable Solid Rocket Motor set 113.

Carrying an ISS flight designation of ULF-5 (Utilization and Logistic Flight 5), STS-133 will carry several Department of Defense (DoD) payloads of opportunity. All of these payloads — MAUI, SEITI, SIMPLEX, and RAMBO-2 — have flown on numerous Shuttle mission before and will only be performed if time permits.

Special Topics/Considerations:

Nevertheless, unlike previous Shuttle missions, SSP managers have formed a special Tiger Team for this mission.

The team has been instructed to “think outside the box” in terms of improving performance on STS-133/ULF-5 under the assumption that “this will be the last flight of the orbiter used for STS-133,” notes the FDRD document — available for download on L2.

In fact, the tiger team held its first meeting on June 5th, identifying the following ISSP goals for STS-133: “Maximize Cargo Upmass (pressurized & unpressurized), Pre-position spares that can be flown on ELC-4, fly Logistics Module (Pressurized Logistics Module or Multi-Purpose Logistics Module) at maximum weight attainable, maintain a viable middeck capability of ~800 lbs, transfer 25 lbs of Oxygen to ISS, fly a full middeck for return trip to Earth, plan for one EVA (deferrable in real time if required), and perform an ISS Flyaround” after undocking.

Similarly, the Flight Operations and Integration office has summarized the current SSP goals for STS-133. This list consists of the following: last flight of OV-105 or OV-103 (target date to choose orbiter is Oct. 5), take advantage of last flight status to think ‘out of the box’ to maximize ability to meet ISSP’s goals for the mission, no compromises on crew or orbiter safety, and only minimal to no re-certification efforts allowed.”

Furthermore, the Tiger Team’s brainstorming efforts has yielded inputs on three categories of Trade Space Performance Enhancement.

The first category relates to performance enhancement strategies that should be pursued. These include reducing the STS-133 crew to five people, reducing mission duration to less than 12 days, removing fifth Cryo Tank Set and eliminating ballast, removing 6th GN2 Tank, and deleting ELC-4 LTA cable and associated hardware from the mission’s baselined payload.

The second category, which includes suggestions that “make sense but need more analysis/shelf life considerations,” includes such performance enhancements as reducing rendezvous altitude of Station and Shuttle, removing Aft Radiator Panels from Discovery, and performing a multistage Deorbit Burn at the end of the mission.

Finally, the third category (options that “are not thought to be good candidates for pursuit because of cost, schedule, risk, low return for magnitude of effort/distraction”) include throttling the Space Shuttle Main Engine’s from 104.5 percent to 106 percent during ascent and removing SRB parachutes and cameras.

These options were briefed by the Tiger Team to the Joint Mission Integration Control Board and the SSP Control Board with the knowledge that the Category-1 recommendations are being incorporated into a second CR for STS-133.

Furthermore, the FDRD notes that “CR-2 updates will be familiar to most, but not all reviewers, due to the support that has been provided to the Tiger Team. Therefore an expedited review is being requested for CR-2 in order to facilitate including updates in integration work.”

As of now, the Tiger Team has been tasked with reporting their final assessments of all Category-2 recommendations to the SSP and ISSP no later than mid-July. Any accepted recommendations from that meeting will then be presented to the “STS-133 Flight Integrated Product Team for integration into the STS-133 mission.”

STS-133 - Option 1:

The first option for STS-133 will see Discovery launch with five Cryo Tank sets, six GN2 tanks, and a six person crew on a 12+1 day mission with one baselined EVA (Spacewalk).

Further, Discovery’s primary payload - in addition to the DoD payloads of opportunity - would be a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC-4).

For the MPLM, four active longeron latches, one active keel latch with keel camera, and a Remotely Operated Electrical Umbilical (ROEU) that will provide 28V heater power and 124V of temperature and pressure checks will be used to install the module into Discovery’s Payload Bay.

Inside the MPLM will be two Utilization racks, three Resupply Stowage Platforms, and two Resupply Stowage Racks.

ELC-4 will have four active longeron latches for the deck assembly and two passive longeron latches and one passive keel latch for the Keel Assembly.

A ROEU will provide 28V heater power to the ELC and a Payload Power Switching Unit (PPSU) will provide additional electrical inhibit capability.

ELC-4 will also require “unique Flight Software for the PPSU’s internal heater on/off telemetry.”

Furthermore, the payload that will be attached to ELC-4 for launch (under option 1) will be the HPGT, a SARJ Race Ring, a spare Express Pallet Controller Assembly, and FRAM based SASA ORU-2, CTC-2, and four empty Passive FRAM sites.

Additionally, Discovery will carry a GLACIER freezer to the ISS and return a used GLACIER to Earth. Also, Discovery will deliver a Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus/National Lab Pathfinder (CGBA/NLP) to ISS.

In all, Discovery’s expected payload weight is ~35,461lbs with an additional 1,326lbs of ballast in the aft. The MPLM is expected to weigh 18,304lbs, ELC-4 9,516lbs, and the middeck payload 7,591lbs. That leaves an overall Ascent Performance Margin of ~800lbs.

Overall, the mission objectives for STS-133 are to “deliver utilization, logistics, and resupply, deliver and install ELC-4 to S3 Lower Inboard, deliver spare HPGT and transfer to ELC-2 for stowage, and install the Functional Cargo Block Power Data Grapple Fixture.”

The preliminary mission timeline for Option 1 shows Discovery docking with the ISS on FD-3 (Flight Day 3), EVA-1 (HPGT transfer and ELC LTA cable activities) occurring on FD-4 along with ELC-4 unberth and installation to ISS, MPLM unberth and installation to ISS on FD-5, Focused Inspection activities and middeck transfer operations on FD-6, rack transfers to and from the MPLM on FDs 7-10 with MPLM rebirth in Discovery’s Payload Bay on FD-10, Undocking and flyaround on FD-11, and landing on FD-13.

Option 2:

In a desire to maximize upmass to the ISS, Option 2 for STS-133 incorporates the Category-1 recommendations of the Tiger Team as presented in June to the SSP Control Board.

To this end, under Option-2, Discovery would launch ELC-4 and a Pressurized Logistics Module (modified MPLM for long-duration on-orbit stay) to the ISS.

Discovery would launch with only four Cryo tank sets and five GN2 tanks for a 10+0 day mission with only five crew members and one contingency/deferrable EVA.

For this option, Discovery’s total payload weight would be 38,193lbs - with the Pressurized Logistics Module weighing 21,502 lbs, ELC-4 weighing 9,680 lbs, and the middeck payload weighing 7,011 lbs.

This would give the mission an approximate Ascent Performance Margin of 839 lbs with only 126 lbs of ballast in the aft.

For this option, the ELC-4’s payload would be an Heat Rejection (Sub) System radiator, CTC-2, and two empty FRAMs only.

The Pressurized Logistics Module - which would remain on the station after Discovery’s departure - would carry two International Standard Payload Racks and a To Be Determined Cargo Rack Equivalent compliment only.

The mission’s objectives would be the delivery and installation of ELC-4 to S3 Lower Inboard, the delivery and installation of the Pressurized Logistics Module to a To Be Determined location, and the capability for one deferrable EVA if a Focused Inspection should be required.

Under this option, Discovery would dock on FD-4, berth the ELC-4 and Pressurized Logistics Module to the ISS on FD-5, activate and ingress the Pressurized Logistics Module as well as conduct middeck transfers on FD-6, perform the only EVA or Focused Inspection on FD-7, Undock on FD-9, and land on FD-11.

[Octane]

Ulteriori informazioni riguardo l'ultima missione pianificata per il programma STS.
da NSF:

STS-133 refined to a five crew, one EVA mission – will leave MPLM on ISS (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/08/sts-133-five-crew-one-eva-mission-leave-mpm-on-iss/)

Shuttle managers have baselined STS-133 – by way of the Flight Definition Requirements Document (FDRD) mission update – into a 10+1+2 day mission, involving a crew of just five, a Flight Day 4 docking and just one EVA. The move was made to allow for additional mass to be carried by the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) – which will remain as a new addition on the International Space Station (ISS).

[Octane]

Si avvicina il momento dellla presentazione dei risultati della Agustine Commission e pare farsi concretamente strada la possibilità di un'estensione di 2 anni del programma Shuttle.
Consiglio comunque di leggere tutto l'articolo:

Major Shuttle and ISS extension drive taking place at the Augustine Commission (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/07/major-shuttle-and-iss-extension-drive-augustine-commission/)

[Rand]

Investigation called after STS-127 SSME 1 found to have 100s of leaks (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/09/investigation-sts-127-ssme-1-found-340-leaks/)

A failure investigation team has been created for Endeavour’s Number One Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) that was used during STS-127, which was found to have hundreds of leaks in its nozzle tubing during post-flight inspections. The engine – which was passed to fly after suffering from contamination at the pad ahead of flight - thankfully enjoyed a nominal performance during powered ascent.

Endeavour/STS-130 Latest:

Following her STS-127 mission, Endeavour has been in processing inside Orbiter Processing Facility 2 (OPF) for the February 4, 2010 flight to carry Node 3 and Cupola to the International Space Station (ISS).

This week has seen work being conducted on replacing Fuel Cell 3 – which will be completed after the holiday weekend – and reinstalling her Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS)

“Orbiter: OV-105 (OPF Bay 2): Fwd Sep Pyro Harness Installation was completed yesterday. APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) catch bottle drain SCAPE operation was completed this morning,” noted Friday processing information on L2.

“Fuel Cell hydrogen separator R&R work continues and should complete today. Fuel Cell 3 R&R work picked up yesterday with mechanical de-mates and the removal of the replacement fuel cell from its shipping container.

“Electrical de-mates are scheduled for today, and the R&R is scheduled for (next) Tuesday. OBSS installation into the Orbiter is scheduled for today.

SSME 1 Leaks:

As part of the normal processing flow, all three SSMEs were recently removed from Endeavour, ready for their turnaround on a future flight. However, one engine will require a new nozzle – following inspections.

“Were working post STS-127 Engine inspections in the engine shop. On Engine #1 (2045), got into nozzle tube leak checks,” noted the first memo on the observations (L2). “Ended up with over 100 leaks on the hot wall side of that nozzle.”

This engine (2045) is set for turnaround in order to be ready to fly with Discovery on STS-131 next year. It is also designated as being on standby for installation on Atlantis for STS-335 – the Launch On Need (LON) mission in support of STS-133, which is currently the final mission on the shuttle manifest.

The memo confirmed the engine in question was the SSME that required specialist cleaning ahead of STS-127, when a brown – rust-like – contamination was observed on the nozzle out at the pad.

“Corrosion/contamination has been noted on two SSME nozzles at Pad A for STS-127 (engines 1 and 3). ME2045 (Main Engine) has a significant amount in the first few inches downstream of the MCC/nozzle interface joint G15, and ME2054 has a minor amount approximately 10 inches below G15,” noted a pad flow report ahead of STS-127.

“Completed polishing. During normal nozzle inspection, identified two issues: engine 1 and 3 have some corrosion at G15 area. It looks unusual, and have asked corrosion expert from Canoga Park to look at it.”

Those experts deemed the engine to be in good shape, confirmed by successful leak checks at the pad.

The SSME nozzle tubes are made of A286 iron based steel and are nickel plated primarily to make the brazing of the tubes to operate nominally. It is deemed to be completely normal for these tubes to rust in the Florida coastal pad environment. However, the tubes – which are put under 6000 psig pressure during engine operation – are at risk of rupturing if corrosion has reduced their integrity.

An example of tube damage on the SSME nozzles was seen during STS-93’s infamous launch, where three tubes were damaged by a blown injector pin, leading to the engine controller assuming more hydrogen was being burned and compensated by injecting additional LOX – ultimately resulting in the ECO (Engine Cut Off) sensors shutting down the engines slightly ahead of time, leading to an underspeed at MECO (Main Engine Cut Off).

While Columbia’s engine only suffered from three punctures on her SSME during STS-93, a tube split or rupture would be a more serious event. **Click here for clips from the L2 STS-93 Internal Loop Video of Columbia’s ascent**

How close Endeavour’s number one engine came to suffering a major problem is unknown, with no performance issues noted in the post flight IFA (In Flight Anomaly) review on the SSMEs. However, with the engine passed as fit to fly, before failing leak checks upon its return is under investigation.

“2045 is the engine that had brown contamination prior to STS-127, which was cleaned a couple of times. That came as a surprise because they did not think that the brown contamination would pit the nozzle tubes,” added the memo.

“Will have some folks come out this week to take a good look at it. They have taken carbon tape samples, and done some digital microscopic work on the nozzle tubes. Engine 3 also had some brown residuals. (However,) post-flight leak checks look within family, nominal.”

A later memo noted engineers had then conducted a full mapping of the engine to get an exact count of leak areas. More than triple the original number were found.

“SSME (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne/KSC): On Engine 2045 that came out of position 1 for STS-127, had over 100 nozzle tube leaks on that nozzle,” added the latest Shuttle Standup/Integration report on L2. “Finally completed mapping that nozzle, and had a total of 340 tube leaks of various classes.

“Have a team, formed, working through a fault tree and a history of that nozzle to find out how it turned up in the corroded state we have here. Will report on that information once the failure investigation team is concluded.”

Further articles will follow as the investigation produces its findings and any potential impact on the remaining SSMEs set to fly.

4chr

[GioFX]

SFN:

NASA names crew for final space shuttle mission

BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: September 18, 2009


Chief astronaut Steven Lindsey, a veteran of four shuttle missions, will command an all-veteran six-member crew for the final planned space shuttle flight next year, NASA announced Friday. Peggy Whitson, a veteran space station commander, will take over as chief astronaut as the shuttle program winds down.

Lindsey will be joined by pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Benjamin "Al" Drew, Michael Barratt, Nicole Stott and Timothy Kopra, all space veterans. Barratt and Stott are currently in orbit aboard the International Space Station while Kopra just returned from a long-duration stay.

Launch aboard the shuttle Discovery on mission STS-133 is targeted for September 2010. During the eight-day flight, a modified logistics module used to ferry equipment and supplies to and from the space station will be permanently mounted on the Earth-facing port of the central Unity module. No spacewalks are currently planned.

Barratt, who launched to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft last March, is scheduled to return to Earth with Expedition 20 commander Gennady Padalka on Oct. 11. Stott, who replaced Kopra aboard the station during Discovery's just-completed mission, is scheduled to come home with the crew of the next shuttle flight in November.

Only six shuttle flights remain before the program is retired, all bound for the International Space Station. With Friday's announcement, all of the crews are now assigned and no unassigned rookies remain in NASA's astronaut office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Here is the shuttle manifest as it currently stands:

Launch..Shuttle.....Mission..EVAs...Payloads

2009
11/12...Atlantis....STS-129...3....ELC-1; ELC-2 (external spares)

2010
02/04...Endeavour...STS-130...3....Node 3 (Tranquility); cupola
03/18...Discovery...STS-131...3....Logistics module; science racks
05/14...Atlantis....STS-132...3....Russian research module; spares
07/29...Endeavour...STS-134...3....Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer; spares
09/16...Discovery...STS-133...0....Permanent Logistics Module; spares


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0909/18sts133crew

[Rand]

SSP fight back at ASAP Augustine Hearing claim on Shuttle risk (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/09/ssp-fight-back-asap-augustine-claim-risk/)

Space Shuttle Program (SSP) manager John Shannon has claimed that Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) leader Admiral Joseph W. Dyer’s opposition to an extension of the shuttle manifest, due to it “becoming more risky”, is not an accurate reflection of the program’s current environment. This led to Mr Shannon addressing his workforce to inform them he found the Admiral’s comments “disturbing”.

Shuttle Risk:

Although additional funding is the key driver for extension to become a reality, the question of how much “risk” would be involved with additional flights in the shuttle manifest has been the subject of debate since former NASA administrator Mike Griffin made claims that there was a 1 in 8 chance of a LOV/C (Loss Of Vehicle/Crew) if the fleet flew past 2010.

“The ASAP does not, I’ll emphasize that, does not support extending the shuttle beyond its current manifest,” noted Admiral Dyer in his opening remarks to the House hearing to discuss the initial findings of the Augustine Review into the forward path for Human Space Flight.

That comment was specific to safety, as cited in the Admiral’s opening statement, which gained the opening question from Mr Bart Gordon, a Democrat representative from Tennessee – who chaired the hearing.

“In your comments, you made a very definitive statement concerning no extension of the shuttle,” Mr Gordon asked. “Now is that period, or is that or is that in context to 2020 (likely 2015), and would you extend it if it was recertified, or if there was a mission – or two missions – that came up in the next short period that seemed to be very important? Is there still a period where you wouldn’t go one more?”

“Three quick comments: The thing that scares us the most is that kind of serial extension,” responded Admiral Dyer. “Point number 2: We take this position because we think the risk is more than what we should ask folks to shoulder – and we don’t think there is full transparency to that risk.

“Thirdly, the time to extend the shuttle in the panel’s opinion was several years ago when the supply chain was still intact and when there was an opportunity to go forward with a (inaudible) program. A number of folks, who participated on the (ASAP) panel, have lived through an extension of number of Department of Defense aircraft programs after they were supposed to terminate. It is never a good experience.

“I will also offer one other caution. Could you, with significant money and with recertification, extend the shuttle? Yes. The money would be impressive, it would have to go well through the supply chain, and the risk of finding things that demand even more resources during recertification is a real risk.”

With the heavy tone on the risk, and with six shuttle missions still to be launched, Mr Gordon asked if NASA should be looking at one less flight – if the risk was as bad as the ASAP was portraying. That led to an astonishing claim from Admiral Dyer.

“We say in the military world that the operational commander always has the authority to proceed in the face of absolute requirements – and it would be an equivalent position in the opinion of the panel. The shuttle is risky, it is becoming more so, and extension beyond what is planned through the current manifest we believe would be unwise.”

Reference: Previous *main* Shuttle Extension articles by NASASpaceflight.com:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/07/major-shuttle-and-iss-extension-drive-augustine-commission/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/05/nasa-present-two-shuttle-extension-options-to-lawmakers/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/03/aresorion-slipping-18-months-shuttle-extension-upper-hand/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/02/extra-nasa-funds-initial-step-towards-gap-reduction/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/09/senate-pass-nasa-bill-for-extra-funding/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/10/shuttle-extension-white-paper/
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/09/nasas-dream-scenario-of-a-13-flight-extension-for-shuttle/

Shuttle Response:

The remark that the shuttle is becoming “more riskier” drew anger from throughout the shuttle program, not least due to the fact that major steps forward – via numerous safety modifications – that have been proved via a run of highly successful and “clean” missions since Return To Flight.

The recently landed STS-128 mission is already being classed as the cleanest flight – from a Thermal Protection System (TPS) standpoint – in the history of the program.

Such as been the anger – or more so astonishment – at the Admirals remarks, even Mr Shannon decided to add remarks to the latest Shuttle Standup/Integration report (available on L2) to give his position to the SSP team, made in his usual calm and professional manner.

“There were some disturbing remarks from the head of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). We are working to understand these concerns from a Shuttle risk standpoint,” Mr Shannon noted. “We are flying safer now, and have a better safety culture and integrated team approach with many checks and balances to ensure that we are flying as safely as absolutely possible.”

Mr Shannon also cited the recent Flight Readiness Review (FRR) and Mission Management Team (MMT) decisions not to launch a mission until they were absolutely sure the shuttle was safe to carry it out.

These decisions are well documented, from the continuous External Tank foam modifications from STS-114 onwards, to the Engine Cut Off (ECO) sensor/LH2 Feedthrough connector issues surrounding STS-122, to the extensive Flow Control Valve (FCV) discussions, to the GUCP (Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate) misalignment, and right through to STS-128’s LH2 Fill and Drain Valve indications – to name but a few.

Also, as noted by Mr Shannon as safety culture, internal memos have shown major efforts to welcome dissent from throughout the shuttle engineering team, even when such dissent was proven to be unfounded. A “no stone left unturned” attitude was how one source described the current culture to this site.

Each time a problem has been noted, it has been proven that managers have stepped back, listened to the engineering community, before making absolutely sure they both understand the problem and are in a comfortable position to launch.

“We have demonstrated over the last several flows that when we are not ready to fly, we stop and take the necessary time to understand the situation before we proceed,” added Mr Shannon, who added he wasn’t even sure if Admiral Dyer was speaking of the current program, given how alien his representations were to the reality of the program since Columbia.

“(I am) extremely proud of how the team has worked through recent problems. (I am) not sure if the concerns of the ASAP chairman were echoes of the past, but they do not accurately reflect the current environment. We will work to understand these comments and to be sure that we have not forgotten anything.”

The reality of the actual risk – a risk that is obvious and never underestimated throughout manned space flight – was shown in the extension study report that NASA filed with the White House back in May of this year.

Those findings revealed a 98.7 percent probability of safely executing each flight, which painted a very different picture when compared to Mr Griffin’s alarming 1 in 8 chance of a disaster.

“The latest Space Shuttle probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) indicates that the single mission risk for loss of crew and vehicle (LOCV) is 1 in 77; stated another way, there is a 98.7 percent probability of safely executing each flight,” noted the NASA study into extending the shuttle past 2010 (available on L2).

Interestingly, that study based its figures on the SSP since 1987. Had the study was based on post Return To Flight findings, it would be highly likely resulted in a risk ratio would be significantly lower – simply due to the flight history since the loss of Columbia, and the numerous modifications made since the fleet returned to action with STS-114.

However, even based on the conservative study findings, the risk is not deemed to a ratio that would increase, which directly counters the Admiral’s claims.

“The average risk of LOCV has remained fairly consistent over that time. This risk is predicted to remain consistent over the remaining life of the program. The primary drivers for LOCV are, in order of the magnitude of their contribution to the overall risk: micro-meteoroid/orbital debris (MMOD), ascent debris, and Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) malfunctions.

“In addition, NASA will continue to evolve its PRA tools to address anomalies encountered during flight operations. By monitoring anomaly trends across different categories (for example, by whether an anomaly is due to design issues, age, operations or procedurally-induced effects, or unknown or random phenomena), NASA gains both near-term insights into Space Shuttle performance opportunities for potential safety improvements during ongoing operations as well as longer-term benefit in applying experience-based risk models to future programs like Constellation.

“NASA’s safety and mission assurance strategy emphasizes the need for rigorous program and independent safety reviews, as well as continual safety improvements throughout a program’s life cycle. Improvements to both processes and hardware are made for each Space Shuttle flight, and NASA will continue to invest in prudent safety enhancements through the last mission.”

The latest SSP Top Risks Review presentation on L2 shows the vehicle is becoming safer, with the latest ratio updated to 1 in 81 LOV/C, from the previous 1 in 77.

The SSP also earned praise at the preceding meeting with the Senate side of Hearing from both the politicians in attendance and Mr Norm Augustine himself – who spoke of his “astonishment” at the morale and professionalism of the program’s workforce.

Such comments are a good reflection of the highly respected SSP team. However, the continued uncertainty surrounding the future of both the Shuttle Program and NASA itself is understandably starting to pay a toll, as the program is forced to press ahead of a cull of its workforce based on the current plan to end the program after STS-133.

A forward plan is expected next month – right at the cusp of a point of no return for the Shuttle Program’s extension potential. That point of a soon-to-be-known “executable plan” was also referenced by Mr Shannon.

“Testimony from the Augustine Committee has been delivered to the House and Senate, but everyone must keep in mind that this is the starting point of the discussion on NASA’s future.

“The House disagreed with some of the findings, and the Senate disagreed with other findings. These points will be worked out before it is submitted to the White House. When we come out of this process, we will have an executable plan.”

4chr

[Rand]

missione classificata Shuttle + wc + depressurizzazione (tramite il wc :D) =

Thanksgiving Memories (http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog.blog/posts/post_1259077518292.html)

Posted on Nov 24, 2009 08:44:29 AM | Wayne Hale | 0 Comments

The shuttle is in flight once again this Thanksgiving Day, not the first time a holiday has come during a shuttle flight. My station friends remind me that they fly 24/7/365 and Christmas is really just GMT day 359. But when the shuttle is flying during Thanksgiving, I am always reminded of one significant day:

STS-33 was one of those classified DoD shuttle flights we can’t really talk about. But I don’t think I’ll be in any trouble with security over this mostly true story. I was the Orbit 1 team Flight Director and the shift schedule called for my team to be on console about noon. We had a big family Thanksgiving meal early that year (a real challenge for my wife). Satiated with turkey, all the trimmings, and pie, I arrived at the MCC to start handover from the planning team lead by Rob Kelso. We were expecting a really quiet shift.

Falcon Flight gave me the big news before I even plugged my headset into the console: “Potty is broken!” Sigh. Flight Directors spent hundreds of hours studying the various systems: engines, fuel cells, navigation. Everybody’s least favorite system was not working. “If we don’t get it fixed, the crew will have to break out the Apollo bags” Rob continued. If you don’t know what an Apollo bag is, well . . . let’s just say that you really didn’t really want to know. It’s a big plastic bag with sticky substance on the lip which you apply to your . . . anatomy . . . to take care of your . . . business. Not glamorous.

Fixing the potty is not exactly the kind of problem you want to work on following a big meal.

So MC finished team handover, got a few sketchy details from the crew, and set to work to see how the “Waste Management Collection System” could be fixed.

It wasn’t until the post flight debriefings that we heard what really transpired onboard. Story Musgrave, raconteur extraordinaire, was an eyewitness. It seems that the victim of the WCS failure was the commander, Fred Gregory.

First, you must have a primer on how to go to the bathroom in space (every schoolboy’s favorite subject). The lack of gravity means that everyday earth based technology does not work. Early efforts were primitive (reference the discussion of the Apollo bags above). #1 might be easily taken care of, but #2 is a much bigger problem (Pardon me here, my vocabulary is influenced by the recent effort to get my grandchildren potty trained here on earth). Without gravity the . . . waste material . . . tends not be removed from the body. The shuttle potty deals with this mainly by airflow. A very small opening in the toilet (much smaller than earth based toilets) allows just the critical part of . . . your anatomy . . . to fit precisely over the hole. There is a famously closed circuit TV in the WCS trainer at JSC’s building 5 to help astronauts learn how to correctly position themselves. Flight Directors did not have to go through this little indignity during our training. In early WCS designs, there was a complicated mechanism down that hole called the “slinger/shredder” which was pretty descriptive of its intent. The astronaut office objected to having a high RPM mechanical device so close to . . . . their person . . . and tests showed that the “slinger/shredder” probably wouldn’t work well, so the design got changed early in the shuttle. Now the toilet just uses airflow to do what gravity does here on earth. One sits in the WCS compartment with your feet in stirrups and a lap belt to hold you down. Once correctly positioned, the victim uses a handle much like an automobile gear shift lever to start the mechanism. First pull on the lever closes the vacuum valve – all the odors in the quiescent potty are sucked out through the orbiter’s overboard vent system. Second pull on the lever opens the “slider valve” just under the seat and that means the toilet is open for . . . business. Next pull starts a small fan which circulates air to help with . . . removal. When you are done, reversing the gear shift lever first turns off the fan, then closes the slider valve, and finally opens the vacuum vent. In that order.

Some quirk of sadistic spacecraft design required that all the air coming into the space shuttle crew compartment comes in through the “roof” of the WCS compartment. Normally there is very little makeup air required, but when the pressure falls slightly due to the natural leakage of the crew compartment, makeup air flows in through automatic valve outlets. A sophisticated system automatically keeps track of whether the makeup gas should be oxygen or nitrogen, the desire being to maintain a sea level atmosphere composition and pressure. Since the crew breaths in oxygen (and the exhaled carbon dioxide is removed elsewhere), the makeup gas is usually oxygen. The cryogenic oxygen tanks in the payload bay feed both the fuel cells and breathing air. The liquid oxygen from the tanks must be warmed to become a gas, but it still comes out very cold in the WCS compartment.

So during crew sleep early Thanksgiving morning, Fred Gregory had to do what comes naturally. All was well until (as) he moved the gear shifter to close up the WCS. Story related what happened next with great relish. Unfortunately, somewhere in the mechanism, the slider valve failed to close - but the vacuum vent was opened up! Depressurization! You can imagine what it would be like to be strapped down, have the suction of pure space applied to . . . . your person . . . , have a rush of cold oxygen burst in over your head, and the depress Klaxon alarm going off simultaneously.

Story opened the WCS door and together they got the mechanism to close the slider valve, and then got Fred off the seat.

Of course the whole crew was awakened by this commotion and John Blaha, the pilot, was starting to work the emergency procedure for cabin leak.

The immediate danger passed, but Mission Control was now on the radio and wanted to know what happened. A much abbreviated narrative was received. Needless to say, not much sleep was had for the remainder of the crew sleep period. And the bathroom was definitely closed for maintenance.

On the ground, MCC called in the engineering team that designed and tested the WCS (remember, it’s a holiday and most folks were just then sitting down to the Big Meal!) We got a crew of techs to open up one of the WCS units on the ground. Meanwhile, the flight controllers studied systems schematics and flight rules. We all pondered how to make the thing work. The IFM (in-flight-maintenance) guys came to our rescue. By removing the cover from the front of the device and applying vise grip pliers to an appropriate lever, the potty could be used without depressurizing the cabin again.

Whew. Problem solved. That’s what MCC is there for.

Every Thanksgiving now, sometime after the pie and before the football game/nap, I chuckle as I remember that episode. And give thanks for 1 G and three toilets in my house.

A few days later, Fred Gregory tried to land the shuttle like he did the T-38 . . . but that is another story for another day . . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

[AlexGatti]

Una riflessione generale sullo sistema Shuttle.
Ho letto che lo Shuttle costa 300 milioni di dollari a lancio, non so quale parte siano costi fissi e quale costi relativi al singolo lancio, però la cifra mi pare assolutamente esagerata.
In confronto, una missione robotica su un altro pianeta (tipo quella di spirit & opportunity) costa 300 milioni in tutto (penso escluse estensioni). Questo farebbe pendere molto verso l'esplorazione robotica, ogni anno ci sono almeno cinque lanci di shuttle, si potrebbe "scambiare" il tutto con 5 missioni robotiche (partite ogni anno) verso altrettante mete del sistema solare.

Quello che voglio dire è che mi sembra ad occhio che ci sia un evidente margine di miglioramento dell'efficienza costi/benefici dell'esplorazione spaziale "manned" ed è incredibile (per me) che si sia andati avanti 30 anni con lo shuttle senza chiedersi se c'erano modi piu efficienti (anche se magari "meno fighi") di mandare gente in orbita.

[+Benito+]

come senza chiedersi?
poi stai paragonando cose non paragonabili, lo shuttle non è fatto per lasciare l'orbita terrestre, mentre le sonde sì. Andare su un altro pianeta con lo shuttle non è possibile con una sonda sì.
Non sottovalutare comunque il fatto che una squadra di uomini mandata su marte in due giorni acquisisce più informazioni che con 50 lanci di sonde.

[Rand]

Una riflessione generale sullo sistema Shuttle.
Ho letto che lo Shuttle costa 300 milioni di dollari a lancio, non so quale parte siano costi fissi e quale costi relativi al singolo lancio, però la cifra mi pare assolutamente esagerata.

Per lo Shuttle i costi fissi sono preponderanti.

Il costo deriva essenzialmente dal fatto che ad ogni lancio porta 100 tonnellate in orbita (peso orbiter + 20-25 tonnellate di carico).

In confronto, una missione robotica su un altro pianeta (tipo quella di spirit & opportunity) costa 300 milioni in tutto (penso escluse estensioni). Questo farebbe pendere molto verso l'esplorazione robotica, ogni anno ci sono almeno cinque lanci di shuttle, si potrebbe "scambiare" il tutto con 5 missioni robotiche (partite ogni anno) verso altrettante mete del sistema solare.

Ci sono molte missioni robotiche che costano più di 300 milioni di dollari: il programma MER è costato 820 milioni di dollari (senza estensioni), New Horizons 650 milioni di $. Le più costose (e rare) arrivano fino a 2-3 miliardi di dollari. Una che costa circa 300 è Dawn con i suoi 357 milioni di dollari (escluso il razzo).

Riguardo al ragionamento in generale:

- Dal punto di vista politico non è detto che meno soldi ai voli con equipaggio significhino più soldi alle missioni robotiche. E' molto probabile che una buona fetta dei fondi resi disponibili dalla cancellazione vengano destinati ad altro (non NASA).
- L'obbiettivo rimangono missioni su asteroidi/luna/marte. Una missione con equipaggio costa molto di più, ma garantisce ritorni scientifici molto maggiori. Se cancelli le missioni con equipaggio attuali le tecnologie necessarie non vengono sviluppate.
- Anche le missioni Shuttle hanno la loro utilità. Poi si può discutere su "scienza sulla ISS" vs "scienza sui pianeti", ma è un discorso piuttosto ampio..

Quello che voglio dire è che mi sembra ad occhio che ci sia un evidente margine di miglioramento dell'efficienza costi/benefici dell'esplorazione spaziale "manned" ed è incredibile (per me) che si sia andati avanti 30 anni con lo shuttle senza chiedersi se c'erano modi piu efficienti (anche se magari "meno fighi") di mandare gente in orbita.

Il costoso dipende dalle capacità: una Soyuz costa molto meno, ma non trasporta 7 astronauti, non può montare un airlock, non ha un braccio robotico e non trasporta 20 tonnellate di carico. Dipende da cosa devi farci :D

Inoltre sviluppare un alternativa non costa poco. Dove li prendi i soldi se vuoi continuare a far volare lo Shuttle nel frattempo?

[AlexGatti]

Per lo Shuttle i costi fissi sono preponderanti.

Il costo deriva essenzialmente dal fatto che ad ogni lancio porta 100 tonnellate in orbita (peso orbiter + 20-25 tonnellate di carico).
Effettivamente sapevo che nei progetti iniziali lo shuttle avrebbe dovuto fare piu di 20 missioni all'anno per essere economico, anche se poi i costi di manutenzione si sono moltiplicati rispetto a quanto preventivato inizialmente.
Il carico utile è comunque molto poco rispetto al peso dell'orbiter.


Ci sono molte missioni robotiche che costano più di 300 milioni di dollari: il programma MER è costato 820 milioni di dollari (senza estensioni), New Horizons 650 milioni di $. Le più costose (e rare) arrivano fino a 2-3 miliardi di dollari. Una che costa circa 300 è Dawn con i suoi 357 milioni di dollari (escluso il razzo).
Sono comunque pochi rispetto alle spese per lo shuttle.
Un programma spaziale "Manned" serve, ci vuole, ma tenere la ISS in orbita bassa, rifornirlo e star li mi sembra abbastanza inutile.
E' un po' come (rubo il paragone a qualcuno che ne capisce piu di me) se Cristoforo Colombo invece di partire, avesse preso le 3 caravelle, le avesse portate a 100 miglia dalla costa spagnola e fosse stato li 10 anni a girare in tondo per "studiare la gli effetti della lunga permanenza in mare".
Noi dobbiamo sopportare la durezza della vita nello spazio per esplorare il cosmo, non dobbiamo andiare nello spazio per sopportare le durezze del cosmo.



Riguardo al ragionamento in generale:

- Dal punto di vista politico non è detto che meno soldi ai voli con equipaggio significhino più soldi alle missioni robotiche. E' molto probabile che una buona fetta dei fondi resi disponibili dalla cancellazione vengano destinati ad altro (non NASA).

Vero, secondo me comunque devono esistere modi migliori per andare in orbita. Oggi gli USA se vogliono mandare qualcuno sulla ISS devono staccare un assegno di 300 milioni e portarsi dietro 75 tonnellate di shuttle, se non vogliono appaltare ai russi.



- L'obbiettivo rimangono missioni su asteroidi/luna/marte. Una missione con equipaggio costa molto di più, ma garantisce ritorni scientifici molto maggiori. Se cancelli le missioni con equipaggio attuali le tecnologie necessarie non vengono sviluppate.


Il fatto è che lo shuttle fa delle cose che nessun altro veicolo sa fare, ed è molto costoso, ma non fa un sacco di cose che si vorrebbero fare. Ad esempio:
- trasporta molto carico (anche se l'orbiter pesa 3 volte il carico)
- trasporta molti astronauti
- ma non va oltre l'orbita terrestre bassa.

ora, tanti astronauti e tanto carico dovrebbero servire per cominciare una missione "lontana" o per tentare una colonizzazione, ad esempio della luna, ma se si è legati all'orbita bassa perdono di senso.

E dunque occorre riprogettare tutto... guarda caso Constellation è fatto molto in stile "Saturn V" da questo punto di vista lo shuttle è stato un errore, ci ha tenuti 20 anni con una navetta che non ci ha mai permesso di uscire dall'orbita terrestre.


Il costoso dipende dalle capacità: una Soyuz costa molto meno, ma non trasporta 7 astronauti, non può montare un airlock, non ha un braccio robotico e non trasporta 20 tonnellate di carico. Dipende da cosa devi farci :D

Inoltre sviluppare un alternativa non costa poco. Dove li prendi i soldi se vuoi continuare a far volare lo Shuttle nel frattempo?

Bisognerebbe sviluppare molto il sistema privato, in modo da abbassare il prezzo per kg in orbita e sfruttare la concorrenza, almeno per portare in orbita il carico che pesa molto e costa poco produrlo, ovvero il carburante.

Per la domanda "dove li prendi i soldi" la risposta è "terminando il programma shuttle".

Per quanto sia affezionato allo Shuttle mi sono convinto che continuare a far volare lo shuttle oltre le missioni già previste e fino al completamento di un'alternativa, comporti un doppio danno:
- Vengono spesi sullo shuttle soldi che potrebbero essere spesi per sviluppare l'alternativa o sponsorizzare programmi privati
- Il fatto che comunque "abbiamo lo shuttle per andare in orbita" toglie pressione allo sviluppo di un'alternativa. Se gli USA fossero a piedi e dovessero fare l'autostop in russia, la pressione per avere un mezzo di accesso indipendente all'orbita sarebbe molto maggiore, e i tempi di realizzazione dell'alternativa si stringerebbero.

per quanto riguarda le alternative piu o meno istituzionali io vedo bene questa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT

[Rand]

Sono comunque pochi rispetto alle spese per lo shuttle.
Un programma spaziale "Manned" serve, ci vuole, ma tenere la ISS in orbita bassa, rifornirlo e star li mi sembra abbastanza inutile.
E' un po' come (rubo il paragone a qualcuno che ne capisce piu di me) se Cristoforo Colombo invece di partire, avesse preso le 3 caravelle, le avesse portate a 100 miglia dalla costa spagnola e fosse stato li 10 anni a girare in tondo per "studiare la gli effetti della lunga permanenza in mare".
Noi dobbiamo sopportare la durezza della vita nello spazio per esplorare il cosmo, non dobbiamo andiare nello spazio per sopportare le durezze del cosmo.

L'utilità scientifica e ingegneristica (tecniche relative alle EVA, sistemi di supporto vitale, ecc.) c'è, che poi sia più interessante andare su altri pianeti è vero :D

Vero, secondo me comunque devono esistere modi migliori per andare in orbita. Oggi gli USA se vogliono mandare qualcuno sulla ISS devono staccare un assegno di 300 milioni e portarsi dietro 75 tonnellate di shuttle, se non vogliono appaltare ai russi.

Se vuoi solo andare in LEO puoi usare una piccola capsula e risparmiare.

Se vuoi andare fuori dalla LEO con un architettura classica ti serve comunque un veicolo di lancio "pesante" che non verrà a costare molto meno dello Shuttle (però porta più carico utile).

E dunque occorre riprogettare tutto... guarda caso Constellation è fatto molto in stile "Saturn V" da questo punto di vista lo shuttle è stato un errore, ci ha tenuti 20 anni con una navetta che non ci ha mai permesso di uscire dall'orbita terrestre.

L'idea di base dello Shuttle non è sbagliata (mezzo riutilizzabile per portare cose in orbita a basso costo). Il problema è che il budget disponibile al momento dello sviluppo ha portato a una serie di compromessi che hanno reso impossibile raggiungere il "a basso costo" (quindi niente budget per uscire dalla LEO).

Oggi altri fattori (massima sicurezza, tempi limitati) hanno portato a scegliere un lanciatore classico.

Bisognerebbe sviluppare molto il sistema privato, in modo da abbassare il prezzo per kg in orbita e sfruttare la concorrenza, almeno per portare in orbita il carico che pesa molto e costa poco produrlo, ovvero il carburante.

Per la domanda "dove li prendi i soldi" la risposta è "terminando il programma shuttle".

E' una scelta possibile e interessante. Però ha grosse controindicazioni a livello politico visto che essenzialmente significa terminare VAB, LC-39 e infrastrutture di produzione dei componenti relative agli SRB e all'ET, ovvero licenziare circa 15000 persone.

Imho è preferibile una scelta più graduale: incentivi i privati, ma mantieni un programma basato sui componenti dello Shuttle. Eventualmente integrandolo con i propellant depot che citi.

Per quanto sia affezionato allo Shuttle mi sono convinto che continuare a far volare lo shuttle oltre le missioni già previste e fino al completamento di un'alternativa, comporti un doppio danno:
- Vengono spesi sullo shuttle soldi che potrebbero essere spesi per sviluppare l'alternativa o sponsorizzare programmi privati
- Il fatto che comunque "abbiamo lo shuttle per andare in orbita" toglie pressione allo sviluppo di un'alternativa. Se gli USA fossero a piedi e dovessero fare l'autostop in russia, la pressione per avere un mezzo di accesso indipendente all'orbita sarebbe molto maggiore, e i tempi di realizzazione dell'alternativa si stringerebbero.

I 2 punti sono corretti, ma ci sono altri fattori da prendere in considerazione:

- Aldilà della pressione alcuni tempi di sviluppo sono "incomprimibili". Una pausa nei voli troppo lunga ha conseguenze negative (vedi sotto).
- Una pausa troppo lunga implica licenziamenti di migliaia di persone. Questo non piace ai politici e può portare alla perdita di manodopera qualificata e quindi ad eventuali ritardi e/o incidenti evitabili.
- La ISS deve essere supportata correttamente.

Questo non vuol dire che non sia d'accordo con te su questo punto, solo che ci sono molti fattori da considerare e non è una decisione semplice.

per quanto riguarda le alternative piu o meno istituzionali io vedo bene questa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT

O anche il "Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-Derived_Heavy_Lift_Launch_Vehicle), perde in flessibilità nei confronti di DIRECT ma dovrebbe garantire uno sviluppo ancora più lineare.

[AlexGatti]

L'utilità scientifica e ingegneristica (tecniche relative alle EVA, sistemi di supporto vitale, ecc.) c'è, che poi sia più interessante andare su altri pianeti è vero :D

Spero che i privati possano farsi strada (successivamente) pure per le missioni "manned"


Se vuoi solo andare in LEO puoi usare una piccola capsula e risparmiare.

La russia puo farlo con le soyuz che sono residuati anni '60 che però funzionano.
Gli usa ora non possono, l'unica cosa che vola con delle persone sopra è lo shuttle attualmente. Gli stati uniti si sono legati mani e piedi allo Shuttle, non hanno tenuto nessun programma neanche parzialmente alternativo.



Se vuoi andare fuori dalla LEO con un architettura classica ti serve comunque un veicolo di lancio "pesante" che non verrà a costare molto meno dello Shuttle (però porta più carico utile).

Già, infatti constellation lo hanno progettato con 2 lanciatori, uno piccolo (Ares I) che porta l'equipaggio e dovrebbe avere tutti i sistemi di sicurezza possibili e immaginabili e uno grosso che dovrebbe portare il veicolo vuoto da popolare in orbita.

L'idea di base dello Shuttle non è sbagliata (mezzo riutilizzabile per portare cose in orbita a basso costo). Il problema è che il budget disponibile al momento dello sviluppo ha portato a una serie di compromessi che hanno reso impossibile raggiungere il "a basso costo" (quindi niente budget per uscire dalla LEO).
Capisco che l'idea non sia sbagliata, ma se è riuscita male, sono stati 20 anni senza progettare l'alternativa.


E' una scelta possibile e interessante. Però ha grosse controindicazioni a livello politico visto che essenzialmente significa terminare VAB, LC-39 e infrastrutture di produzione dei componenti relative agli SRB e all'ET, ovvero licenziare circa 15000 persone.

Le missioni shuttle già previste vanno fatte, ma poi basta, piu estendi e piu danneggi il futuro.


Imho è preferibile una scelta più graduale: incentivi i privati, ma mantieni un programma basato sui componenti dello Shuttle. Eventualmente integrandolo con i propellant depot che citi.

Concordo che ci debbano essere sia i privati che un programma governativo, però con almeno un paletto: che il "lanciatore governativo" non deve offrire servizi di messa in orbita ai privati. Non vorrei che il razzo del governo, foraggiato dal governo tolga mercato tramite concorrenza sleale ai privati.



I 2 punti sono corretti, ma ci sono altri fattori da prendere in considerazione:

- Aldilà della pressione alcuni tempi di sviluppo sono "incomprimibili". Una pausa nei voli troppo lunga ha conseguenze negative (vedi sotto).
- Una pausa troppo lunga implica licenziamenti di migliaia di persone. Questo non piace ai politici e può portare alla perdita di manodopera qualificata e quindi ad eventuali ritardi e/o incidenti evitabili.
- La ISS deve essere supportata correttamente.

Questo non vuol dire che non sia d'accordo con te su questo punto, solo che ci sono molti fattori da considerare e non è una decisione semplice.

La ISS una volta completata puo essere supportata dalle soyuz per l'equipaggio e dalle capsule dell'esa e della jaxa per le provviste. Anzi, senza un accesso indipendente per l'equipaggio, magari l'esa e la jaxa si smuovono per rendere human rated uno delle due capsule.

Alcuni tempi sono certamente "incomprimibili", ma tutti i tempi sono "espandibili" per mancanza di fondi e supporto adeguato.


O anche il "Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-Derived_Heavy_Lift_Launch_Vehicle), perde in flessibilità nei confronti di DIRECT ma dovrebbe garantire uno sviluppo ancora più lineare.
Per il carico/veicolo ok, ma per gli astronauti? si riescono a mandare su in sicurezza incapsulati li o c'è comunque bisogno dell'equivalente di un Ares I?

[+Benito+]

e i progress? li hanno dismessi?

[Rand]

e i progress? li hanno dismessi?

No, continuano a produrli/lanciarli.

Le criticità logistiche relative alla ISS sono essenzialmente tre:

- Lo Shuttle è per ora l'unico veicolo in grado di trasportare alcuni "pezzi di ricambio" particolarmente grossi (ad esempio una radiatore sostitutivo o "la parte rotante" dei pannelli solari). Ci sono soluzioni possibili (EELV con un adattatore che simuli gli attacchi tipici dello Shuttle), ma niente di pronto.
- Lo Shuttle ha una capacità di trasporto notevolmente superiore a tutte le alternative. Per coprire la sua mancanza devono entrare in attività Dragon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon) e Cygnus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_spacecraft).
- Finché non entra in attività Dragon manca un mezzo in grado di trasportare dei rack di nuovo a terra (interi :D).

[Rand]

La russia puo farlo con le soyuz che sono residuati anni '60 che però funzionano.
Gli usa ora non possono, l'unica cosa che vola con delle persone sopra è lo shuttle attualmente. Gli stati uniti si sono legati mani e piedi allo Shuttle, non hanno tenuto nessun programma neanche parzialmente alternativo
Capisco che l'idea non sia sbagliata, ma se è riuscita male, sono stati 20 anni senza progettare l'alternativa.

Pochi soldi e nessuna volontà politica (o peggio volontà politiche che cambiano portando all'annullamento di programmi come l'X-38).

Le missioni shuttle già previste vanno fatte, ma poi basta, piu estendi e piu danneggi il futuro.
Concordo che ci debbano essere sia i privati che un programma governativo, però con almeno un paletto: che il "lanciatore governativo" non deve offrire servizi di messa in orbita ai privati. Non vorrei che il razzo del governo, foraggiato dal governo tolga mercato tramite concorrenza sleale ai privati.

Quel paletto c'è già dal dopo-Challenger.

Per quanto riguarda i posti di lavoro mi riferivo principalmente a un razzo governativo che riusi le infrastrutture, quindi direi che siamo d'accordo.


La ISS una volta completata puo essere supportata dalle soyuz per l'equipaggio e dalle capsule dell'esa e della jaxa per le provviste. Anzi, senza un accesso indipendente per l'equipaggio, magari l'esa e la jaxa si smuovono per rendere human rated uno delle due capsule.

Alcuni tempi sono certamente "incomprimibili", ma tutti i tempi sono "espandibili" per mancanza di fondi e supporto adeguato.

Sulle questioni logistiche vedi il post sopra.

In sostanza se ci sono da aggiungere 2 missioni per garantire dei margini operativi buoni alla ISS io le farei, specie se riescono a "star dentro" all'ultimo anno di operazioni (in sostanza se hai già pagato i costi fissi dell'anno tanto vale spendere quel poco in più e sfruttarlo al meglio.)

Per il carico/veicolo ok, ma per gli astronauti? si riescono a mandare su in sicurezza incapsulati li o c'è comunque bisogno dell'equivalente di un Ares I?

La versione con equipaggio avrebbe un LAS ("la torretta razzo" che porta via la capsula se il razzo si sta disassemblando da solo). Sono da esaminare la posizione laterale della capsula rispetto all'ET e le interazioni LAS/ET, ma dovrebbe essere possibile.

Da notare che sia DIRECT che il "Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle" potrebbero avere interessanti sinergie con lo Shuttle: se le modifiche necessarie alle infrastrutture e ai macchinari di produzione sono minori e non ci vuole molto a sviluppare il nuovo razzo non ha senso licenziare del personale di cui hai bisogno 1 anno dopo. C'è quindi la possibilità di continuare a lanciare lo Shuttle ad un costo aggiuntivo molto basso (se continui a pagargli lo stipendio tanto vale farli lavorare :D)

[Octane]

No, continuano a produrli/lanciarli.

Le criticità logistiche relative alla ISS sono essenzialmente tre:

- Lo Shuttle è per ora l'unico veicolo in grado di trasportare alcuni "pezzi di ricambio" particolarmente grossi (ad esempio una radiatore sostitutivo o "la parte rotante" dei pannelli solari). Ci sono soluzioni possibili (EELV con un adattatore che simuli gli attacchi tipici dello Shuttle), ma niente di pronto.
- Lo Shuttle ha una capacità di trasporto notevolmente superiore a tutte le alternative. Per coprire la sua mancanza devono entrare in attività Dragon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon) e Cygnus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_spacecraft).
- Finché non entra in attività Dragon manca un mezzo in grado di trasportare dei rack di nuovo a terra (interi :D).

Tenevo anch'io a sottolineare che al momento l'unico mezzo in grado di riportare a terra del carico è appunto lo Shuttle.

Come ho già scritto in passato sarebbe stato bello avessero continuato lo sviluppo dell'X33:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X33
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar

[Rand]

Si parla di una nuova missione Shuttle (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/12/nasa-evaluating-sts-135-addition-to-shuttle-manifest/) in aggiunta a quelle già previste. In sostanza verrebbe lanciato lo Shuttle preparato per l'ultimo "Launch On Need" e in caso di problemi l'equipaggio (ridotto) ritornerebbe a terra tramite delle Soyuz.

[Rand]

Cocaine Found In Shuttle Processing Facility (http://www.universetoday.com/2010/01/14/cocaine-found-in-shuttle-processing-facility/)

A small amount of cocaine was found in a restricted area of the processing hangar for shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center, NASA is launching an extensive investigation into the incident. KSC spokeswoman Lisa Malone said the substance was found by a United Space Alliance worker in a hallway outside two bathrooms and a janitor’s closet, in an area where workers have to swipe their identification cards to enter. Every one of the approximately 200 people who were in the Orbital Processing Facility 3 would be easily identified, NASA says, and added Discovery's planned launch in March should not be impacted by this event.

"This is a rare and isolated incident, and I'm disappointed that it happened, but it should not detract from the outstanding work that is being done by a dedicated team on a daily basis," Kennedy Space
Center Director Bob Cabana said. "We are conducting an investigation and working with center security and law enforcement officials to get to the bottom of it. We have multiple checks and balances in place to ensure the work on the orbiter is done correctly, and I have no concern for Discovery's fitness for flight."

While there are no indications anyone who was working on Discovery was under the influence of any illegal substances, drug testing of personnel who were in that area has been conducted. Drug-sniffing dogs were immediately called in to check out the employees, but found nothing.

NASA said extensive efforts are being made to ensure flight hardware and equipment that will be used by astronauts on Discovery's upcoming STS-131 mission are completely safe.

"We have processes that will ensure the integrity of the shuttle," Cabana said. "There is no reason whatsoever to believe this incident will have any impact on Discovery's upcoming launch."

Meticulous records are kept on all work that is performed. Shuttle safety and quality assurance teams have the capability to trace individuals' work in detail. In addition, most work tasks are reviewed and approved by one, and sometimes two, quality inspectors and specialists who verify proper work was done on critical flight hardware.

A quanto sembra tutte le 180 persone che potevano accedere all'area sono già state sottoposte a test.

[+Benito+]

mica come da noi....

[GioFX]

^ esatto.

Entro la prossima settimana vedo di aprire il thread dedicato alla prossima missione, la STS-130.

[Xile]

Since no one wanted to buy the space shuttles when NASA first offered them up for sale, the agency has decided to slash the price to a more modest $28.8 million each. And the engines? Free (pay only S+H).

Discovery is already headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, but those other two? Atlantis and Endeavour? Totally available and looking to score.

And the engines I mentioned above originally went for about $400,000 to $800,000 apiece, but no one bit when they were put up for sale in December 2008. Now, when they go out of service with the rest of the shuttle program, they'll be yours if you pony up the cost of shipping.

Gizmondo.com (http://gizmodo.com/5450267/free-nasa-space-shuttle-engines?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29)

:cry:

Se avessero permesso la vendita anche all'estero sicuro li avrebbero venduti.

[Rand]

:cry:

*

Anche se a livello razionale: per un museo non dev'essere semplice reperire la quantità di fondi richiesta per pagare il trasporto, la messa in sicurezza e la costruzione/preparazione dell'edificio in cui alloggiarlo.

Se avessero permesso la vendita anche all'estero sicuro li avrebbero venduti.

Negli USA ci sono norme particolarmente restrittive sull'esportazione di materiale aeronautico/aerospaziale, vedi ITAR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations).

[senzasoldi]

Ho appena visto il filmato di uno shuttle in partenza.
Come bruciano bene i tre motori, apparentemente senza fumo!

[+Benito+]

i motori bruciano ossigeno e idrogeno, come possono fumare? :D

[senzasoldi]

a beh... allora è ovvio:D

[GioFX]

SFN:

Come see a space shuttle launch before time runs out

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 4, 2010

Endeavour's predawn blastoff Sunday begins the final countdown to retirement of the storied spaceships this year, leaving only a few opportunities left to see a shuttle launch in person.

"I'm trying to motivate as many people as I can right now to go and see one of these last handful of shuttle missions that are left and actually see the glory or more importantly just to feel the kind of palpable excitement that everyone has when they actually see humans launch on a big vehicle like the space shuttle and get into orbit," says Bob Behnken, the lead spacewalker on Endeavour's crew.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts130/100204launches/launch.jpg
Credit: NASA

Witnessing the spectacle of a space shuttle launch, its Earth-shaking departure from the Florida spaceport on seven million pounds of thrust, is truly an awe-inspiring sight to behold.

The technological marvel that is the space shuttle, the most complicated machine man has ever produced, leaves the planet with humans strapped inside on the power generated from the controlled explosion of rocket fuels, accelerating from zero to 17,500 miles per hour in less than nine minutes time.

"It's a different feeling when you watch people launch into space than it is when you watch a Delta or an Atlas rocket take off," Behnken said.

"So I think that aspect for anybody who's actually been to a human launch is something that's always going to be memorable for them. We all watch differently, I think, even if it's just on the television when we know there are people at the pointy end of that rocketship, that folks are doing something hard and it's really critical that everything goes smoothly."

Sunday morning's planned 4:39 a.m. EST liftoff of Endeavour could be the last shuttle launch to occur at night. If the projected schedule for the four remaining flights later this year remains unchanged, those missions will have morning and afternoon launch times.

Night launches are special treats, lighting up the dark with a man-made sunrise of golden flame. The shuttle streaks across the sky trailing a fiery plume 700 feet long from its solid rocket boosters that can be spotted hundreds of miles away.

All launch dates, of course, are subject to change. But here's a look at the dates and times for the final five shuttle missions as currently scheduled:


STS-130 on Endeavour is targeted for launch on Sunday, February 7 at 4:39 a.m. EST to deliver the Tranquility module and cupola observation port to the International Space Station.

STS-131 will see Discovery fly on Thursday, March 18 at 1:34 p.m. EDT to haul supplies and science gear to the space station.

STS-132 will be the last flight of Atlantis when it launches on Friday, May 14 at 2:28 p.m. EDT carrying a new Russian docking compartment for the station.

STS-134 is Endeavour's final flight and features a morning launch on Thursday, July 29 at 7:51 a.m. EDT with external spare parts and a science platform for the station.

STS-133 concludes the space shuttle program with Discovery's mission to bring more spare parts and a storage module to the station. It launches on Thursday, September 16 at 11:57 a.m. EDT.


The specific liftoff times are dictated by the International Space Station's orbit. The shuttles have roughly 10 minutes per day to launch on the necessary path to reach the station for rendezvous and docking.

If a shuttle mission is delayed, the launch time moves approximately 25 minutes earlier with each day a flight is postponed. That means the July mission, for example, could end up occurring in the predawn darkness if it slips a few days.

For detailed information about where you can watch a space shuttle launch, check out viewing options here (http://www.launchphotography.com/Shuttle_Launch_Viewing.html).

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts130/100204launches/sunrise.jpg
Credit: NASA

With the uncertain future of America's space program, it could be several years before another human is launched into orbit from U.S. soil. NASA is buying seats in Russian Soyuz capsules flown from Kazakhstan to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the space station for the foreseeable future.

When the shuttles stop flying, the Soyuz will be the only available transportation for Americans to reach orbit until some new vehicle is developed and built. NASA had envisioned the Ares 1 rocket and Orion capsules would start flying astronauts by 2014, but budget woes and politics have intervened with that plan.

President Obama is directing the space agency to look at commercial providers, such as SpaceX with its planned Falcon 9 booster and Dragon spacecraft, to replace the space shuttle and reopen human access to space for the U.S. later this decade.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts130/100204launches/

[+Benito+]

dai andiamo a vedere un lancio....

[GioFX]

SFN:

Final space shuttle booster test-firing ready to light
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 24, 2010

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1002/25pretest/02.jpg

BRIGHAM CITY, Utah -- A space shuttle solid rocket booster, anchored horizontally in the high desert of northern Utah, will be ignited for a two-minute firing Thursday that caps a test program dating back to 1977.

Booster maker Alliant Techsystems will conduct the test just before 12 noon Mountain Time (2 p.m. EST; 1900 GMT) at its facilities in Promontory.

Engineers have 43 design objectives for the full-scale shuttle rocket, which is instrumented with 258 channels of data.

It will be 52nd such test performed for NASA's space shuttle program. The first test was conducted on July 18, 1977, during the shuttle's early development.

With the shuttle program now winding down and only four missions left to launch into space this year, officials say Thursday's test will ensure those upcoming boosters fly safely.

The twin solid-fuel rockets provide 80 percent of the thrust needed to propel the space shuttle off the ground. A single shuttle solid rocket booster generates up to 3.3 million pounds of thrust during ascent, equivalent to 22 million horsepower.

Each motor is packed with 1.1 million pounds of propellant and burn about five tons of fuel per second. The rubber-like fuel resembling a pencil eraser is a blend of aluminum powder, ammonium perchlorate, HB polymer, iron oxide and an epoxy curing.

The pure white boosters are 149 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. They are comprised of 11 steel sections that are stacked together.

Known for their reusability, the motors parachute into the Atlantic Ocean during launch for retrieval and refurbishment. The booster being used in Thursday's test has casings flown previously on 38 shuttle missions.

Spaceflight Now will be covering Thursday's test live from the ATK test site. Check back for photos, high-definition video and a full story on the milestone event.


http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1002/24srbtest/

[Rand]

NASA's Space Shuttle Program Successfully Conducts Final Motor Test in Utah (http://www.onorbit.com/node/2003)

NASA's Space Shuttle Program conducted the final test firing of a reusable solid rocket motor Feb. 25 in Promontory, Utah.

The flight support motor, or FSM-17, burned for approximately 123 seconds - the same time each reusable solid rocket motor burns during an actual space shuttle launch. Preliminary indications show all test objectives were met. After final test data are analyzed, results for each objective will be published in a NASA report.

ATK Launch Systems, a unit of Alliant Techsystems Inc., in Promontory, north of Salt Lake City, manufactures and tests the solid rocket motors.

The test - the 52nd conducted for NASA by ATK - marks the closure of a test program that has spanned more than three decades. The first test was in July 1977. The ATK-built motors have successfully launched the space shuttle into orbit 129 times.

"Today's test was a great deal more than the successful conclusion to a series of highly successful NASA/ATK-sponsored static tests that began more than three decades ago," said David Beaman, Reusable Solid Rocket Booster project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The project, part of the Space Shuttle Propulsion Office, is responsible for motor design, development, manufacturing, assembly, testing and flight performance.

"These tests have built a base of engineering knowledge that continued engineering development of the reusable solid rocket motor system and the continued safe and successful launch of space shuttles," Beaman said. "They have provided an engineering model and lessons learned for additional applications in future launch systems."

The final test was conducted to ensure the safe flight of the four remaining space shuttle missions. A total of 43 design objectives were measured through 258 instrument channels during the two-minute static firing. The flight motor tested represents motors that will be used for all remaining space shuttle launches.

The space shuttle's reusable solid rocket motor is the largest solid rocket motor ever flown, the only one rated for human flight and the first designed for reuse. Each shuttle launch requires the boost of two reusable solid rocket motors to lift the 4.5-million-pound shuttle vehicle.

During space shuttle flights, solid rocket motors provide 80 percent of the thrust during the first two minutes of flight. Each motor, the primary component of the shuttle's twin solid rocket boosters, generates an average thrust of 2.6 million pounds and is just over 126 feet long and 12 feet in diameter.

For more information about the Space Shuttle Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

4chr

[razziadacqua]

Se GioFx non è interessato a questo post giuro che rinnego persino la sua esistenza!
http://www.hwupgrade.it/forum/showthread.php?t=2151594

Ragazzi,sul serio,ci andiamo a vedere l'ultimo lancio dello Shuttle?

[GioFX]

Rispondo di la.

[GioFX]

Annunciato le date riviste degli ultimi due lanci del programma:

- STS-133 (Discovery): NET 1 Novembre 2010 (precedente data 16/09/2010)

- STS-134 (Endeavour): NET 16 Febbraio 2011 (precedente data 26/11/2010)


SFN:

Official launch dates targeted for remaining shuttles
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: July 1, 2010

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/images/ni1005/16rpm_400243.jpg

After assessing payload processing issues and projected traffic to and from the International Space Station, NASA managers Thursday formally retargeted the program's final two missions for launches Nov. 1 and Feb. 26.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/100701dates/

[GioFX]

Il Senato americano ha approvato un decreto che obbliga la NASA a predisporre una missione aggiuntiva del programma Shuttle con lancio al più presto per il mese di Giugno 2011.

Questo permetterà di mantenere occupati i lavoratori dei principali contractors del programma per tutto l'anno prossimo. Il decreto autorizzativo richiede inoltre che l'agenzia inizi subito quest'anno lo studio di progettazione del lanciatore pesante che sostituirà lo shuttle in modo che sia pronto per il 2016, occupando lavoratori e risorse già dislocate nel programma STS e nei progetti del defunto programma Constellation, Orion e Ares 1.

SFN:

Senate approves bill adding extra space shuttle flight
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: August 6, 2010

The U.S. Senate passed a compromise NASA bill Thursday night that would order the agency to fly an extra space shuttle mission next June and immediately start work on a new heavy-lift rocket for human voyages beyond Earth.

The vote on the Senate floor occurred late Thursday night, just before lawmakers leave Washington for the traditional August recess.

The Senate's authorization of NASA was unveiled in July as it was approved by the body's commerce committee.

The legislation calls for the launch of another shuttle flight in June 2011, at the earliest. NASA's official shuttle manifest now includes two more missions launching in November and February.

The extra flight, designated STS-135, would keep much of the shuttle workforce in place for another year and resupply the International Space Station.

Workers are already preparing equipment for a "launch-on-need" mission that would fly as a rescue if the two scheduled shuttle flights ran into serious trouble. The STS-135 flight would use the existing hardware if a rescue mission is not required.

Under the Senate authorization bill, NASA would also begin developing a new heavy-duty booster this year for human missions to asteroids and Mars. The legislation directs NASA to use existing contracts, workers and capabilities from the space shuttle and Constellation programs, including the Orion and Ares 1 vehicles.

The heavy-lift rocket should be ready for orbital missions by the end of 2016, according to the Senate. The authorization act budgets more than $11 billion through 2013 for the government-owned launch vehicle and capsule.

About $1.6 billion would be set aside in the next three years by the Senate authorization act for up-and-coming commercial space transportation systems, including capsules to take over the job of sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2015.

The bill was presented as a compromise last month, but a White House spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on Thursday night's passage.

In a statement July 15, the White House told Spaceflight Now the Senate bill "contains critical elements necessary for achieving the president's vision for NASA." The compromise "represents an important first step" in fulfilling President Obama's goals for NASA, the July statement said.

The White House's original NASA policy proposed terminating the Constellation program, providing more than $3 billion to private space companies through 2013, and planning for piloted deep space expeditions at an indefinite time in the future. The proposals did not include adding another shuttle flight.

In a visit to Florida in April, President Obama set a timetable to begin development of a heavy-lift rocket by 2015. Senate legislation would move up the development to fiscal year 2011, which begins in October.

The Senate's NASA appropriations bill is still awaiting consideration on the floor. The spending legislation passed the Senate Appropriations Committee in a July 22 hearing.

The House is working on its own NASA authorization bill, but its language is far different from the Senate legislation.

NASA would still fly the STS-135 shuttle mission and retain key parts of the Constellation program if the House legislation was adopted. But the House provides much less funding for the commercial spaceflight initiative and does not call for building a heavy-lift rocket as soon as the Senate bill.

Instead, the House would direct the agency to continue developing a government-owned rocket and capsule like the Ares 1 and Orion architecture that was to be scrapped by the White House.

The legislation was approved by the House science committee July 22, but plans to bring the bill to a vote on the House floor last week faltered after intense opposition. The House probably won't take up the NASA bill until it reconvenes in September.

The differing versions must be reconciled through a conference committee between the Senate and House.


http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1008/06senate/

[|alby|]

Bhe mi pare che abbiano fatto le cose per bene, in questo modo accontentano proprio tutti.

[GioFX]

Da SpaceFlightNoe.com:

Shuttle Discovery on the pad one last time

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: September 21, 2010

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/100921onpad/jr10.jpg

The incredible machine that is the space shuttle has been the central feature in America's space program for the past three decades. But as forced retirement looms, the orbiters are flying their final missions before becoming museum pieces. Spaceflight Now had the rare treat to visit shuttle Discovery at launch pad 39A and create this photographic collection of the venerable spaceplane.


Foto:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/100921onpad/

[Pot]

Ero li il giorno prima che lo portassero fuori :'(

[GioFX]

Veramente pot? foto foto! :D

[+Benito+]

Sarà uno dei rimpianti della mia vita, così come non aver mai visto schumacher con la ferrari a spa.
Che belle macchine

[GioFX]

Già... tra lo Shuttle e il Kaiser su Ferrari a Spa neanch'io saprei chi preferire... :O

[Pot]

Veramente pot? foto foto! :D

appena ho 5 min le uppo su qualcosa che non sia faisbuk!

[GioFX]

Bravissimo! :)

Se hai un account google puoi usare picasaweb, altrimenti flickr o un servizio di hosting semplice e pratico come imageshack.

[GioFX]

Purtroppo nell'orribile tragedia di ieri a Tucson, dove sono morte 6 persone, sono rimaste ferite altre 14 persone tra cui la deputata democratica Gabrielle Giffords, moglie del famoso e veterano comandante Shuttle, Mark Kelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_E._Kelly) che comanderà l'ultima missione ufficiale Shuttle, l'STS-134 sull'Endeavour.

Mark Kelly è fratello gemello di Scott J. Kelly, attuale comandante della Spedizione 26 sulla ISS.

:(

[Octane]

:(

questo aspetto della tragedia ha avuto risalto sui media..ne hanno fatto servizi anche i telegiornali italiani

[GioFX]

Retrospettiva interessante sulla storia che fu e soprattutto non fu del programma Shuttle a Vandenberg, CA.

SFN:

Space Launch Complex 6
California pad's history illustrates switch from space shuttles to rockets

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: January 17, 2011

http://spaceflightnow.com/delta/d352/history/enterprise.jpg

Space shuttle astronaut extraordinaire Bob Crippen, member of the first crew and commander of three more, was poised to lead the maiden West Coast mission into polar orbit from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

[...]

http://spaceflightnow.com/delta/d352/history/

[GioFX]

Flightglobal.com:

NASA remembers Challenger 25 years later

By Gayle Putrich

NASA marked 25 years since the Challenger disaster with a 45-minute ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 28 January, while across the US and around the world, a generation that grew up with spaceflight as a common event reflected and remembered where they were when they heard the news.
Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after launch, when a failed O-ring in one of the shuttle's solid rocket booster joints failed, probably due to the unusually cold weather, and hot gasses from the shuttle's main fuel tank ignited at 48,000ft.
Under a load factor of up to 20G, the shuttle itself broke apart, with the main engines, left wing and crew cabin all identifiable as the pieces fell into the ocean at an estimated speed of more than 200mph (173kts).
All seven crew members died: Dick Scobee, commander; Michael J. Smith, pilot; Ellison Onizuka, mission specialist; Judy Resnik, mission specialist; Ron McNair, mission specialist; Gregory Jarvis, payload specialist and Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist and teacher.

http://www.sandcastlevi.com/images/space/sts51l-crew.jpg

Shuttle flights were put on hold for 32 months.
The launch - the 25th for the US space programme - was the first aerospace tragedy to play out on live television. It received particular attention in American schools because of McAuliffe, the New Hampshire high school teacher selected for the mission as part of the Teacher in Space program.
It remains a "where were you?" moment on par with the Kennedy assassination and September 2001 terrorist attacks.

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/images/canon/11.jpg

"This speech becomes much more than words as I reflect on the failings of the human safe-flight team," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations for since 2005, at the memorial. "They're not academic or simple lessons, but lessons that must be implemented and learned every day. The little things that seem harmless can become catastrophic events."
A quarter-century later, it is the little things that continue to burden the shuttle programme, as it struggles to launch its last few flights before closing down. The November 2010 launch of Discovery has been repeatedly postponed first because leaking helium and nitrogen gas lines on the Shuttle's orbital manoeuvring system pod, then electrical problems and bad weather and finally due to cracks in the stringers on its external fuel tank.


http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/01/28/352522/nasa-remembers-challenger-25-years-later.html

[GioFX]

SFN.com:

STS-51 Challenger Timeline

The following timeline was assembled in the wake of the Challenger disaster by William Harwood, United Press International's Cape Canaveral bureau chief at the time of the accident, and Rob Navias, at that time UPI radio's chief space correspondent. It was assembled in the authors' spare time as an internal reference.

The timeline merges telemetry beamed down from the shuttle, NASA recordings of the flight director's loop in mission control at the Johnson Space Center, the NASA-Select audio circuit heard by the public and a transcript of crew cabin intercom conversations released by NASA after the accident.

While every effort was made to ensure accuracy, the timing of the NASA-Select and mission control audio circuits is based on stopwatch analysis and as such is somewhat subjective. The crew cabin intercom transcript was provided by NASA rounded to the nearest second. Telemetry and photo timing was generated by NASA for the Rogers Commission, the presidential panel that investigated the mishap.

T=0.000

Solid rocket ignition command is sent.

Astronaut Judy Resnik, intercom: "Aaall Riight!"

T+0.008

First of eight 25-inch-long, 7-inch-wide exploding bolts fire, four at the base of each booster, freeing Challenger from launch pad.

T+0.250

First continuous vertical motion is recorded.

T+0.678

Film developed later shows the first evidence of abnormal black smoke appearing slightly above the suspect O-ring joint in Challenger's right-hand solid rocket booster.

T+0.836

The black smoke appears darkest; jets in puffs of three per second, roughly matching harmonic characteristics of the shuttle vehicle at launch.

PHOTO: SMOKE AS SEEN BY CAMERA E-60

T+0.890

Ground launch sequence computers begin post-liftoff "safing" of launch pad structures and equipment.

T+1.000

Shuttle pilot Michael Smith, intercom: "Here we go."

T+2.733

Last positive evidence of smoke above the aft attach fitting that holds the rear of the right-side booster to the external fuel tank. The aft attach fitting is a little less than two feet above the fuel segment joint.

T+3.375

Last positive visual indication of smoke swirling under the bottom of the external fuel tank.

Launch commentator Hugh Harris, NASA-SELECT television: "... Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission, and it has cleared the tower."

T+4.339

The three liquid-fueled main engines throttle up from 90 percent thrust to 104 percent thrust as planned.

T+5.000

Data processing systems (DPS) engineer A.F. Algate, mission control, Houston: "Liftoff confirmed."

Flight director Jay Greene, Houston: "Liftoff..."

Loss of data from the shuttle at NASA's Merritt Island antenna complex for four data frames. Four more "data BIT-synch dropouts" occur in the next one minute and six seconds. These are normal and are caused by flame and objects on the horizon that attenuate radio signals.

T+5.615

The backup flight system computer aboard Challenger commands the S-band PM (phase modulated) and S-band FM radio systems to switch antennas to maintain communications during the upcoming roll maneuver.

T+5.674

Internal pressure in the right-side booster is recorded as 11.8 pounds per square inch higher than normal.

T+7.724

The shuttle clears the launch pad tower and begins a maneuver to roll over, putting the crew in a "heads down" position below the external tank.

T+8.000

Shuttle commander Dick Scobee, air-to-ground: "Houston, Challenger. Roll program."

T+10.000

Astronaut Dick Covey, mission control: "Roger roll, Challenger."

Flight dynamics officer (FIDO) Brian Perry, mission control: "Good roll, flight."

Greene: "Rog, good roll."

T+11.000

Smith, intercom: "Go you mother."

T+12.000

Another antenna switch is ordered to transfer data to the Ponce De Leon tracking station.

T+14.000

Resnik, intercom: "LVLH." Resnik is reminding Scobee and Smith about proper cockpit ADI configurations. "LVLH" is an acronym that stands for "local vertical, local horizontal."

T+15.000

Resnik, intercom: "[expletive] hot!"

Scobee: "OK."

T+16.000

Mission Control spokesman Steve Nesbitt in Houston, NASA-SELECT television: "Good roll program confirmed. Challenger now heading downrange."

T+19.000

Smith, intercom: "Looks like we've got a lot of wind here today."

Scobee: "Yeah."

T+19.859

Challenger's three main engines receive commands to begin throttling down to 94 percent power, as planned.

T+21.124

The roll maneuver is completed and Challenger is on the proper trajectory.

T+21.604

Right hand SRB thrust decreases before shuttle reaches maximum dynamic pressure. This is accomplished by the burn down of ridges in the solid propellant of the forward fuel segment. Thrust is a function of surface area of propellant burning.

T+22.000

Scobee, intercom: "It's a little hard to see out my window here."

T+22.204

Left hand SRB thrust decreases as planned.

T+27.000

Booster systems engineer (Booster) Jerry Borrer, mission control: "Throttle down to 94." Challenger's three main engines begin throttling down as planned as the shuttle approaches the region of maximum aerodynamic pressure.

Greene: "Ninety four..."

T+28.000

Smith, intercom: "There's 10,000 feet and Mach point five." The shuttle is 10,000 feet high traveling at half the speed of sound.

Nesbitt: "Engines beginning throttling down, now at 94 percent. Normal throttle (setting) for most of the flight is 104 percent. We'll throttle down to 65 percent shortly.

T+35.000

Scobee, intercom: "Point nine."

T+35.379

The three main engines begin throttling down to 65 percent power as planned.

T+36.990

Telemetry data shows the shuttle's computer system responds properly to wind shear to adjust the ship's flight path.

T+40.000

Smith, intercom: "There's Mach 1."

Scobee: "Going through 19,000."

T+43.000

Scobee, intercom: "OK, we're throttling down."

T+45.000

Nesbitt: "Engines are at 65 percent. Three engines running normally..."

T+45.217

A flash is observed downstream of the shuttle's right wing.

T+48.118

A second flash is seen trailing the right wing.

T+48.418

A third unexplained flash is seen downstream of the shuttle's right-hand wing. 70 mm tracking camera closeup: A brilliant orange ball of flame, apparently, emerges from under the right wing and quickly merges with the plume of the solid rocket boosters. This phenomenon, observed during analysis of tracking film after launch, has been seen on previous launches.

T+48.900

Booster systems engineer: "Three at 65."

Nesbitt: "... Three good fuel cells. Three good APUs (auxiliary power units)..."

Greene: Sixty-five, FIDO..."

FIDO: "T-del confirms throttles." The flight dynamics officer is referring to computer software monitoring the flight in real-time.

Greene: "...Thank you."

T+51.860

Challenger's main engines receive commands from the onboard flight computers to begin throttling back up to 104 percent thrust as planned.

T+52.000

Nesbitt: "Velocity 2,257 feet per second (1,539 mph), altitude 4.3 nautical miles, downrange distance 3 nautical miles..."

T+57.000

Scobee, intercom: "Throttling up."

Smith: "Throttle up."

Scobee: "Roger."

T+58.788

Tracking cameras show the first evidence of an abnormal plume on the right-hand solid rocket booster facing away from the shuttle. Scobee and Smith had no data on the performance of the solid rockets except for a software system that would have alerted them to malfunctions in the booster steering mechanism.

PHOTO: PLUME GROWTH TRACKED BY CAMERA E-207

T+59.000

Challenger passes through the region of maximum aerodynamic pressure, experiencing 720 pounds per square foot.

T+59.262

A continuous "well defined intense plume" of exhaust is seen on the side of the suspect booster by tracking cameras. This is clear evidence of an O-ring joint burn through.

T+59.753

First visual evidence of flame on the right-side booster. 70 mm tracking camera closeup: A flickering tongue of flame appears on the side of the right-side booster away from the shuttle and quickly becomes continuous.

T+60.000

Smith, intercom: "Feel that mother go!"

Unknown, intercom: "Wooooo Hooooo!"

T+60.004

Data radioed from Challenger shows the internal pressure in the right-side SRB begins dropping. This is because of the rapidly increasing hole in the failed joint.

TELEMETRY: RIGHT-HAND SRB CHAMBER PRESSURE DROPS

T+60.238

First evidence of flame from the rupture deflecting and impinging on the external fuel tank.

T+60.248

First evidence of the anomalous plume "attaching" to the fitting that couples the aft end of the right-side rocket to the base of the external fuel tank.

T+60.988

The plume deflection is continuous. 70 mm tracking camera closeup: A thick, well-defined plume of flame arcs away from right solid rocket booster.

T+61.724

The shuttle rolls slightly in response to high winds aloft.

T+62.000

- Smith, intercom: "Thirty-five thousand, going through one point five."

T+62.084

The steering mechanism of the left-hand booster suddenly moves on computer command as Challenger's flight control system compensates for wind shear. It is later noted that wind shear during Challenger's launch was more extreme than for any of the previous 24 shuttle missions, although still within design limits.

T+62.484

Challenger's computers order the shuttle's right-hand "elevon," or wing flap, to move suddenly.

T+63.924

A pressure change is recorded in the right-hand outboard elevon, indicating movement.

T+63.964

The shuttle's computers order a planned change in Challenger's pitch to ensure the proper angle of attack during this phase of the trajectory.

T+64.660

The plume from the burn through changes shape suddenly, indicating a leak has started in the shuttle's liquid hydrogen tank to fuel the fire.

T+64.705

A bright, sustained glow is photographed on the side of the external fuel tank.

T+64.937

The main engine nozzles move through relatively large arcs, trying to keep the shuttle on course as the flight computers attempt to compensate for the unbalanced thrust produced by the booster burn through. The shuttle stops the minute pitching. It is doubtful the crew was aware of the computers' efforts to keep the ship on course given the normal vibrations and acceleration experienced during this phase of flight.

T+65.000

Scobee, intercom: "Reading four eighty six on mine."

Smith: "Yep, that's what I've got, too."

T+65.164

First recorded evidence of Challenger experiencing transient motion.

T+65.524

Data shows the left wing's outboard elevon moves suddenly.

T+66.000

Booster systems engineer: "Throttle up, three at 104."

Greene: "Capcom (Covey), go at throttle up."

T+66.174

Tracking cameras show a bright spot suddenly appears in the exhaust plume from the side of the right-side solid rocket motor and bright spots are detected on the side of the rocket facing the belly of the shuttle.

T+66.764

The pressure in the shuttle's external liquid hydrogen tank begins to drop, indicating a massive leak. Smith had real-time readings of pressure in the liquid hydrogen tank, but it is doubtful he noticed anything unusual because of the rapidity of the failure. It made no difference, ultimately, because even if Challenger's pilots had suspected an SRB problem there was nothing they could have done about it. While the shuttle separates from its external fuel tank shortly before reaching orbit, it does so with no engines firing and in a benign aerodynamic environment. Separating from the tank while the SRBs were firing would drive the shuttle into the bottom of the fuel tank and the SRB exhaust plumes.

T+67.650

The abnormal plumes on the bottom and top of the booster appear to merge into one. This means the flame has wrapped around the joint as the leak deteriorated.

T+67.684

Telemetry indicates falling pressure in the 17-inch-wide liquid oxygen propellant lines feeding the three main engines.

T+68.000

Nesbitt: "Engines are throttling up. Three engines now at 104 percent."

Covey: "Challenger, go at throttle up."

T+70.000

Scobee, air-to-ground: "Roger, go at throttle up."

T+72.204

Data shows divergent up and down motions of the nozzles at the base of both solid rocket boosters.

T+72.284

The two solid rocket boosters change position relative to each other, indicating the right-side booster apparently has pulled away from one of the struts that connected its aft end to the external fuel tank. TV tracking camera: A large ball of orange fire appears higher on the other side of main fuel tank, closer to Challenger's cabin, and grows rapidly.

T+72.478

A "major high rate actuator command" is recorded from one of the boosters, indicating extreme nozzle motions.

T+72.497

The nozzles of the three liquid-fueled main engines begin moving at high rates: Five degrees per second.

T+72.525

Data shows a sudden lateral acceleration to the right jolts the shuttle with a force of .227 times normal gravity. This may have been felt by the crew.

T+72.564

Start of liquid hydrogen pressure decrease. Solid rocket boosters continue showing high nozzle motion rates.

T+72.624

Challenger beams back what turns out to be its final navigation update.

T+72.964

Main engine liquid oxygen propellant pressures begin falling sharply at turbopump inlets.

T+73.000 (approximate)

Smith, intercom: "Uh oh..." This is the last comment captured by the crew cabin intercom recorder. Smith may have been responding to indications on main engine performance or falling pressures in the external fuel tank.

T+73.010

Last data is captured by the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite in orbit overhead, indicating structural breakup has begun in that area.

T+73.044

Start of sharp decrease in liquid hydrogen pressure to the main engines.

T+73.045

Another lateral acceleration, this one to the left, is possibly felt by the crew. Lateral acceleration equals .254 time the force of gravity.

T+73.124

Internal pressure in the right-side rocket booster is recorded as 19 pounds per square inch below that of its counterpart, indicating about 100,000 pounds less thrust. Tracking cameras detect evidence of a circumferential white pattern on the left side of the base of the external tank indicating a massive rupture near the SRB-tank attach ring. This apparently is caused by the aft dome of the liquid hydrogen tank failing. The resulting forward acceleration begins pushing the tank up into the liquid oxygen section in the tip of the external fuel tank.

T+73.137

Vapors appear near the intertank section separating the hydrogen and oxygen sections accompanied by liquid hydrogen spillage from the aft dome of the external tank.

T+73.143

All three main engines respond to loss of oxygen and hydrogen inlet pressure.

T+73.162

Ground cameras show a sudden cloud of rocket fuel appearing along the side of the external tank. This indicates the nose of the right-hand booster may have pivoted into the intertank area, compounding the liquid oxygen rupture.

T+73.191

A sudden brilliant flash is photographed between the shuttle and the external tank. TV tracking camera: Fireballs merge into bright yellow and red mass of flame that engulfs Challenger. A single crackling noise is heard on air-to-ground radio. Engineers later say the sound is the result of ground transmitters searching the shuttle's frequency range for a signal.

T+73.211

Telemetry data from the main engines exhibit interference for the next tenth of a second.

T+73.213

An explosion occurs near the forward part of the tank where the solid rocket boosters attach.

T+73.282

The explosion intensifies and begins consuming the external fuel tank. Television tracking camera: a ball of brilliant white erupts from the area beneath the shuttle's nose.

T+73.327

The white flash in the intertank area greatly intensifies.

T+73.377

Tank pressure for on board supplies of maneuvering rocket fuel begins to fluctuate.

T+73.383

Data indicates the liquid-fueled main engines are approaching redline limits on their powerful fuel pumps.

T+73.482

Channel A of main engine No. 2's control computer votes for engine shutdown because of high pressure fuel turbopump discharge temperature. Channel B records two strikes for shutdown.

T+73.503

Main engine No. 3 begins shutdown because of high temperatures in its high pressure fuel pump. Last data captured by main engine No. 3's controller.

T+73.523

Main engine No. 1 begins shutdown because of high temperatures in high pressure fuel pump.

T+73.543

Last telemetry from main engine No. 1.

T+73.618

The last valid telemetry from the shuttle is recorded as it breaks up: pressure fluctuations in a fuel tank in the left rocket pod at Challenger's rear and chamber pressure changes in auxiliary power unit No. 1's gas generator.

T+73.631

End of last data frame.

T+74.130

Last radio signal from orbiter.

T+74.587

A bright flash is observed in the vicinity of the orbiter's nose. Television tracking camera closeup: The nose of the shuttle and the crew compartment suddenly engulfed in brilliant orange flame, presumably caused by ignition or burning of rocket fuel in the forward reaction control system steering jet pod.

"At that point in its trajectory, while traveling at a Mach number of 1.92 (twice the speed of sound) at an altitude of 46,000 feet, the Challenger was totally enveloped in the explosive burn," said the Rogers Commission report. "The Orbiter, under severe aerodynamic loads, broke into several large sections which emerged from the fireball. Separate sections that can be identified on film include the main engine/tail section with the engines still burning, one wing of the Orbiter, and the forward fuselage trailing a mass of umbilical lines pulled loose from the payload bay."

The nose section had ripped away from the payload bay cleanly, although a mass of electrical cables and umbilicals were torn from the cargo hold, fluttering behind the crew cabin as it shot through the thin air, still climbing. Challenger's fuselage was suddenly open like a tube with its top off. Still flying at twice the speed of sound, the resulting rush of air that filled the payload bay overpressurized the structure and it broke apart from the inside out, disintegrating in flight. Challenger's wings cartwheeled away on their own but the aft engine compartment held together, falling in one large piece toward the Atlantic Ocean, its engines on fire. The TDRS satellite in Challenger's cargo bay and its solid-fuel booster rocket were blown free as was the Spartan-Halley spacecraft. All this happened as the external tank gave up its load of propellant, which ignited in the atmosphere in what appeared to be an explosion. It was more of a sudden burning than an explosion. In any case, the two solid rockets emerged from the fireball of burning fuel and continued on, bereft of guidance from the shuttle's now-silent flight computers.

T+75.000

Nesbitt (not immediately realizing there had been an explosion): "One minute 15 seconds. Velocity 2,900 feet per second (1,977 mph). Altitude nine nautical miles. Downrange distance seven nautical miles."

T+76.437

The nose cap of the right hand solid rocket booster separates and its drogue parachute deploys. Tracking camera closeup: A lone parachute seen emerging from the plume of a solid rocket booster.

T+79.000

TV tracking camera, different view: White streamers of smoking debris blossom from the cloud of smoke and flame marking the spot where Challenger had been. One large burning piece falls toward the ocean. Two solid rocket boosters emerge from the fireball and corkscrew through the sky on their own. Nesbitt's commentary stops.

T+89.000

Greene in mission control utters the first words since the explosion 13 seconds ago: "FIDO, trajectories..."

FIDO: "Go ahead."

Greene: "Trajectory, FIDO."

FIDO: "Flight, FIDO, filters (radar) got discreting sources. We're go."

Ground control (GC) engineer N.R. Talbott, mission control: "Flight, GC, we've had negative contact, loss of downlink (of radio voice or data from Challenger)."

Greene: "OK, all operators, watch your data carefully."

FIDO: "Flight, FIDO, till we get stuff back he's on his cue card for abort modes."

Greene: "Procedures, any help?"

Unknown: "Negative, flight, no data."

T+110.250

Range safety control officers send radio signals that detonate the self-destruct package on right-hand solid rocket.

T+110.252

The left-hand booster self destructs. Tracking camera closeup: a thick cloud of black smoke suddenly engulfs rocket and brilliant but quick explosion ensues. Numerous fragments of the booster emerge from the fireball, including what appears to be a complete aft fuel segment, slowly tumbling.

T+1 min 56 sec

Nesbitt: "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction."

T+2 min 01 sec

Flight controller: "Flight, GC, negative downlink."

Greene: "Copy."

T+2 min 08 sec

Nesbitt: "We have no downlink."

T+2 min 20 sec

TV tracking camera: falling bits of debris create white contrails arching through the blue sky. A larger object, trailing a thin cloud of vapor, plummets toward the ocean.

T+2 min 25 sec

FIDO: "Flight, FIDO."

Greene: "Go ahead."

FIDO: "RSO (range safety officer) reports vehicle exploded."

Greene (long pause): "Copy. FIDO, can we get any reports from recovery forces?"

FIDO: "Stand by."

T+2 min 45 sec

Greene: "GC, all operators, contingency procedures in effect."

T+2 min 50 sec

Nesbitt: "We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded. The flight director confirms that. We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point."

T+3 min 03 sec

Greene: "FIDO, flight..."

FIDO: "Go ahead."

Greene: "LSO and recovery forces, any contacts?"

T+3 min 09 sec

Nesbitt: "Contingency procedures are in effect..."

FIDO: "We're working with them, flight."

Greene: "OK."

T+3 min 22 sec

Nesbitt: "We will report more as we have information available. Again, to repeat, we have a report relayed through the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded. We are now looking at all the contingency operations and awaiting word from any recovery forces in the downrange field."

T+3 min 25 sec

TV tracking camera: The first pieces of debris can be seen splashing into the ocean.

T+3 min 53 sec

FIDO: "Flight, FIDO, for what it's worth, the filter shows 'em in the water."

Greene: "Copy."

T+3 min 58 sec

Challenger's crew cabin smashes into the Atlantic Ocean at about 200 mph. The astronauts, still strapped in their seats, experience a braking force of 200 times normal gravity. The crew cabin disintegrates and settles to the bottom 100 feet below.

T+4 min 15 sec

Television tracking camera closeup shows ocean surface east of Patrick Air Force Station. A large cloud of ruddy brown smoke hangs over surface of water as objects splash on impact nearby. The cloud probably was caused by hydrazine rocket fuel from wreckage that hit the water.

T+4 min 27 sec

Greene: "FIDO, flight. ... FIDO flight."

FIDO: "Go ahead."

Greene: "Did the RSO's have an impact point?"

FIDO: "Stand by."

T+5 min 03 sec

Nesbitt: "This is mission control, Houston. We have no additional word at this time."

T+5 min 05 sec

FIDO: "Flight, FIDO."

Greene: "Go ahead."

FIDO: "The vacuum IP (impact point) is 28.64 North, 80.28 West."

Greene: "How does that stack with the solid (rocket) recovery forces?" Greene is referring to the Liberty Star and the Freedom Star, two NASA ships on station in the Atlantic to recover Challenger's boosters after a normal launch.

FIDO: "We're still talking to them."

Greene: "OK."

T+5 min 24 sec

Nesbitt: "Reports from the flight dynamics officer indicate that the vehicle apparently exploded and that impact in the water (was) at a point approximately 28.64 degrees North, 80.28 degrees West."

T+5 min 36 sec

TV tracking camera: A dark, irregularly shaped piece of debris - thought to be one of Challenger's wings - cartwheels down from the sky and splashes into the Atlantic. It is the largest piece of Challenger seen on TV impacting in the ocean.

T+5 min 46 sec

Nesbitt: "We are awaiting verification as to the location of the recovery forces in the field to see what may be possible at this point and we will keep you advised as further information is available. This is mission control."

T+6 min 15 sec

NASA television switches from ocean views to the grandstand area at the press site. A large cloud of white smoke remains visible towering into the sky, twisted by winds aloft and slowly dissipating. Small, helical streamers mark debris contrails.

T+6 min 41 sec

Greene: "OK, everybody stay off the telephones, make sure you maintain all your data, start pulling it together."

T+7 min 17 sec

Greene: "Flight, FIDO..."

FIDO: "FIDO, flight, go ahead sir."

Greene: "Are the LSO's on the loop?"

FIDO: "We can get 'em."

Greene: "Get 'em up on the loop, please."

LSO (coordinating recovery activity; identity unknown): "Yes sir, this is the LSO."

Greene: "OK, are there any forces headed out that way?"

LSO: "Yes sir. DOD (Department of Defense) LSO reports that all ... forces have been scrambled and they are on their way."

Greene: "OK, do we have an ETA?"

LSO: "Negative, sir."

T+8 min 00 sec

Greene conducts a poll of his flight controllers to determine if any data indicates what may have gone wrong.

Greene: "Booster, flight."

Booster: "Flight, booster."

Greene: "Did you see anything?"

Booster: "Nothing, sir, I looked at all the turbine temps were perfect (sic), right on the prediction. All the redlines were in good shape."

Greene: "RMU?"

Mechanical and upper stage systems officer K.A. Reiley: "We looked good, flight."

Greene: "ECOM? ECOM, flight."

Electrical, environmental, consumables and mechanical systems engineer John Rector: "Flight, ECOM, we looked normal."

Greene: "DPS?"

Data processing systems engineer Andrew Algate: "All our data's normal, flight."

Greene: "PROP?"

A.J. Ceccacci: "Everything looked good, flight."

Greene: "GNC?"

Guidance, navigation and control systems engineer Jeffrey Bantle: "Flight, the roll maneuver looked fine, what we saw of it. We were on our way decreasing roll rate as we lost data."

Greene: "Copy."

T+8 min 03 sec

NASA select television shows launch pad 39-B with smoke still hanging over the mobile launch platform.

T+8 min 37 sec

NASA select television focuses on a small parachute seen slowly drifting down out to sea.

T+9 min 11 sec

FIDO: "That's, uh, probably a paramedic." Later it is determined that this is the nose cap to one of the solid rocket boosters swinging from its drogue parachute.

T+9 min 19 sec

Nesbitt: "This is mission control, Houston. We are coordinating with recovery forces in the field. Range safety equipment, recovery vehicles intended for the recovery of the SRBs in the general area."

T+9 min 36 sec

Greene: "LSO, flight. LSO, flight..."

Nesbitt: "Those parachutes believed to be paramedics going into that area..."

FIDO: "We're getting them, flight."

Nesbitt: "...To repeat, we had an apparently normal ascent with the data..."

LSO: "This is LSO on flight loop."

Greene: "Rog, are you getting any inputs?"

LSO: "Sir, we've got a Jolly 1 (helicopter) on route right now. We've got ships on the way and we've got a C-130 (Hercules) on the way out."

Greene: "Rog."

T+9 min 41 sec

Nesbitt: "...coming from all positions being normal up through approximately time of main engine throttle back up to 104 percent. At about approximately a minute or so into the flight, there was an apparent explosion. The flight dynamics officer reported that tracking reported that the vehicle had exploded and impact into the water in an area approximately located at 28.64 degrees North, 80.28 degrees West, recovery forces are proceeding to the area including ships and a C-130 aircraft. Flight controllers reviewing their data here in mission control. We will provide you with more information as it becomes available. This is mission control, Houston."

T+11 min 05 sec

NASA select television shows the interior of mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Covey and astronaut Frederick Gregory sit silently at the Capcom console, obviously stunned.

T+11 min 39 sec

LSO: "Flight, LSO."

Greene: "Go ahead."

LSO: "Uh, Jolly's have not been cleared in yet, there's still debris coming down."

Greene: "Copy. Who's controlling this operation, please?"

LSO: "S & R (search and recovery) forces out of Patrick (Air Force Base)."

Greene: "Rog. Do we have a coordination loop with those people?"

LSO: "We're working with the SOC on DDMS coord right now." He is referring to a radio network used by Defense Department personnel.

LSO: "Flight, LSO."

Greene: LSO..."

LSO: "Would you like us to try to get up on DDMS coord also?"

Greene: Yes. GC, flight."

GC: "Flight, GC."

Greene: "Take that loop into one of the playback loops please, internal to the building only."

GC: "I didn't copy what you said."

Greene: "DDMS coord, patch it into one of the playback loops internal to the building."

GC: "Copy."

T+12 min 37 sec

Greene: "GC, flight."

GC: "Flight, GC."

Greene: "Checkpoint status, have we taken one?"

GC: "Negative."

Greene: "Take one now."

GC: "Copy."

T+13 min 27 sec

GC: "All flight controllers, hold inputs, lock checkpoint in progress." This is a procedure to take a "snapshot" of all computer data recorded so far to ensure its recovery for documentation.

T+14 min 24 sec

Greene: LSO, flight."

LSO: "LSO here, sir."

Greene: "Any updates?"

LSO: "No sir. No sir, nothing to report."

T+15 min 06 sec

Greene: "Operators, contingency plan copies are coming to each console position. If you have an FCOH (flight control operations handbook) you can start on the checklist, page 27 dash 4, that's page 27-4. Don't reconfigure your console, take hard copies of all your displays, make sure you protect any data source you have."

LSO: "Flight, LSO."

Greene: "LSO?"

LSO: "Looks like about 50 minutes, five-zero minutes, before the helicopters are cleared in because of debris."

Greene: "Fifty minutes from what time, LSO?"

LSO: "OK, from the time of the explosion."

T+21 min 53 sec

Nesbitt: "This is mission control, Houston. Repeating the information that we have at this time. We had an apparently nominal liftoff this morning at 11:38 Eastern time. The ascent phase appeared normal through approximately the completion of the roll program and throttle down and engine throttle back to 104 percent. At that point, we had an apparent explosion. Subsequent to that, the tracking crews reported to the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle appeared to have exploded and that we had an impact in the water down range at a location approximately 28.64 degrees North, 80.28 degrees west.

"At that time, the data was lost with the vehicle. According to a poll by the flight director, Jay Greene, of the positions here in mission control, there were no anomalous indications, no indications of problems with engines or with the SRBs or with any of the other systems at that moment through the point at which we lost data. Again, this is preliminary information. It is all that we have at the moment and we will keep you advised as other information becomes available. We had, there are recovery forces in the general area. Others being deployed, including aircraft and ships. We saw what we believed to be paramedics parachuting into impact area and we have no additional word at this point. We will keep you advised as details become available to us. This is mission control, Houston."

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/

[+Benito+]

Lessi che il 90% dell'abitacolo (crew cabin) e il 50% circa dell'intero veicolo furono recuperati, ma non ho mai trovato traccia di fotografie di un'eventuale ricomposizione stile-ustica, se mai l'avessero fatta.

[GioFX]

In realtà solo il 5% del compartimento equipaggio è stato recuperato, e il 55% di tutto lo stack.

Dell'abitacolo effettivamente non sembrano esistere immagini, ma è vero che dopo essere uscito integro dall'esplosione a T+75s (separato dal resto dal resto dell'orbiter all'altezza della paybload bay) si è distrutto al contatto con l'acqua dell'oceano. La commissione d'inchiesta ha stimato l'impatto a circa 330 km/h e 200g di decelerazione.

Cmq su YT c'è questo interessante video sulla ricostruzione post-inchiesta dell'incidente:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKG4bvZGWag

[+Benito+]

Se wiki non riporta un dato sbagliato:

"55% of Challenger, 5% of the crew cabin and 65% of the satellite cargo is still missing"
Tra le altre cose non avevo mai visto prima d'ora questa foto

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/STS51L-10098.jpg

Seguita da queste sequenze

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/challenger/challenger3.jpg
http://www.boerner.net/jboerner/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/STS51L_grey_smoke_on_SRB.jpg

[GioFX]

Vero, evidentemente ricordavo i numeri ma al contrario... :D

L'articolo di wiki riporta qui:

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Challenger

Interessante lettura.

[GioFX]

E finalmente una buona notizia!

Kelly to resume training for April space shuttle flight
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: February 4, 2011

Astronaut Mark Kelly will resume training to command the shuttle Endeavour for its final mission in April, NASA announced Friday, rejoining his crew one month after a Tucson shooting spree that left his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injured with a gunshot wound to the head.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/images/ni1102/04kelly_400277.jpg

With Giffords undergoing recovery and rehabilitation in Houston, Kelly will rejoin his crew Monday and resume preparations for shuttle mission STS-134, a flight to deliver critical supplies and a $2 billion physics experiment to the International Space Station.

"I am looking forward to rejoining my STS-134 crew members and finishing our training for the mission," Kelly said in a NASA statement. "We have been preparing for more than 18 months, and we will be ready to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station and complete the other objectives of the flight. I appreciate the confidence that my NASA management has in me and the rest of my space shuttle crew."

Whether Kelly could resume training in time for Endeavour's April flight has been an open question for weeks given the severity of Giffords' wound and the demands of her recovery. With Kelly's concurrence, NASA earlier named veteran shuttle commander Frederick Sturckow to train with Endeavour's crew with the understanding that he would fly in Kelly's place if necessary.

Giffords reportedly is making steady progress with rehabilitation in Houston, but NASA's press release did not go into Kelly's reasons for pressing ahead with mission training, saying only that he planned to report to work Monday.

Chief astronaut Peggy Whitson said NASA is "glad to have Mark back."

"He is a veteran shuttle commander and knows well the demands of the job," she said. "We are confident in his ability to successfully lead this mission, and I know I speak for all of NASA in saying 'welcome back'."

Kelly, Whitson and veteran astronaut Brent Jett, director of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center, were scheduled to participate in a news conference at 3 p.m. EST Friday to discuss Kelly's decision and upcoming training for the flight.

Endeavour is scheduled for launch on the 134th shuttle mission around 7:48 p.m. EDT on April 19. If all goes well, Kelly and his crewmates -- pilot Gregory H. Johnson, Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European astronaut Roberto Vittori -- will dock with the space station two days later.

Along with moving the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to a permanent mounting pointing point on the station's main power truss, the crew also plans to stage four maintenance spacewalks and deliver critical supplies and equipment.

Assuming an on-time launch, Endeavour will undock from the station May 1 and land back at the Kennedy Space Center the afternoon of May 3.

NASA managers hope to launch the shuttle Atlantis on the shuttle program's final flight around the end of June to deliver a final load of supplies and equipment to the space station. NASA's fiscal 2011 budget includes authorization for the flight and a four-man crew is in early training, but the mission has not yet been funded.


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110204kelly/


:)

[_fred_]

Ho letto la bella notizia sul giornale di oggi...


Per quanto riguarda il Challanger
Qualche mese fa su Discovery Channel è passato un documentario piuttosto dettagliato in cui mostravano il video del lancio con gli sbuffi di fumo dicendo che se non fosse stato per l'oscillazione (minime ovviamente) dello razzo alla partenza che "apriva a chiudeva" la falla dell'SRS lo shuttle sarebbe potuto esplodere, ma con conseguenze meno gravi, già sulla rampa di lancio.

Tra l'altro sostenevano che molto probabilmente il "colpo di grazia" è stato dato da una corrente trasversale che ad alta quota ha fatto imbardare l'STS quel tanto da far correggere la traiettoia far cedere definitvamente l'o-ring e causare la distruzione del tank e della navetta.

[GioFX]

SFN:

NASA considers Soyuz photo op during shuttle flight
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 25, 2011

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110325flyaround/stationstack.jpg

A few weeks after managers rejected a similar plan during the last shuttle flight, NASA officials hope extra lead time and better planning will permit a three-man Russian Soyuz capsule to undock from the space station and collect never-before-seen imagery of the shuttle Endeavour and orbiting lab linked together.

[...]

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110325flyaround/

[iorfader]

ma lo shuttle non doveva andare in pensione? quale sarà il sostituto?

[GioFX]

Ci sono ancora due missioni, STS-134 (Endeavour) ed STS-135 (Atlantis), poi l'intera flotta verrà decommissionata e il programma chiuso.

Il sostituto NASA ancora non c'è, o meglio: si sta progettando un nuovo sistema con lanciatore espandibile per la ISS ma soprattutto andare oltre l'orbita bassa utilizzando tecnologia derivata dallo shuttle e dal cancellato Constellation. I rifornimenti cargo alla ISS sono stati appaltati dalla NASA a soggetti privati fino al 2015, e scadenza rinnovabile, nell'ambito del programma COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services), e questi sono Orbital Sciences e SpaceX.

[AleLinuxBSD]

L'ultima missione dello shuttle (http://www.unita.it/scienza/notizie/l-ultima-missione-dello-shuttle-br-e-anche-tricolore-1.279114)

[GioFX]

SFN:

Decommissioning work starts for shuttle Discovery
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 28, 2011

And so it begins. Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center have begun taking apart the shuttle Discovery, the ship now a laboratory specimen for engineering forensics before her future date with a museum.

Inside orbiter hangar No. 2 last week, the shuttle's nose piece containing the control thrusters used to maneuver the spacecraft was removed and taken to the hypergolic maintenance facility for decommissioning.

It's the first visible sign of critical post-flight safing work now underway on the three-decade-old Discovery as she goes into retirement.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/nose.jpg

The 39th and final space voyage for Discovery launched February 24 to the International Space Station, delivering the Permanent Multipurpose Module to serve as a float-in storage closet and the Express Logistics Carrier No. 4 for holding large spare parts at the orbiting complex. The shuttle flew back to the Florida spaceport for landing March 9.

The so-called "transition and retirement" phase for Discovery should last several months, eventually getting the shuttle into a safe state for public display. Schedules say the orbiter will be ready to ferry atop a 747 carrier jet to her final home early next year.

But between now and then the space shuttle program wants to delve inside the venerable ship and explore engineering questions about hardware that's not been accessible for examination since construction in the early 1980s.

"There's some things on the vehicles, especially Discovery, that we haven't looked at since it was built out in California. Things like actuators. It's very invasive to go in. I had some pretty good debates with the ground operations team about the difficulty of going to get some of these things. But from an engineering standpoint, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go see how a reusable vehicle actually weathered this many cycles, this many times on orbit, this much time in ground processing," said John Shannon, the shuttle program manager.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/discovery_bay.jpg

"So we'll go get representative actuators, we're going to get main engine flow liners, things that basically you started with and built the orbiter around."

Discovery's rich history included 39 flights, 148,221,675 miles traveled, 5,830 orbits of Earth and a full year of cumulative time spent in space.

Construction began in August 1979 and the spacecraft was rolled out of the Palmdale factory in October 1983. She became NASA's third operational space shuttle with a maiden voyage in August 1984.

The information gained by the various pieces and parts removed for laboratory study, Shannon says, far outweighs leaving the shuttles in exact flight configuration for their museum resting places.

"That's the next legacy of the shuttle program is to give you a lot of material knowledge, of design knowledge, of how things worked over a long period of time," Shannon said. "To me, it's more important to get that engineering knowledge out of these vehicles than it is to have total accuracy in a museum."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will announce April 12 -- the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle launch -- which museums get Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis, plus the prototype Enterprise. It's presumed that Discovery's destination is the Smithsonian.

"The vehicles are going to look very much like the vehicles that operated in space. We're going to put on some (different) hardware so that we can save some of the higher value hardware. We're going to safe it so the public isn't exposed to anything dangerous. And we'll remove some things that the public would never see -- whether there's a left inboard elevon actuator or not, we'll put something else in there that will keep the elevons at the right position. And then we'll go off and learn about it," Shannon said.

The shuttle program plans the same sort of lab testing on parts from sisterships Endeavour and Atlantis after their final spaceflights this spring and summer.

"We will do it on all three. Discovery, since it has more flight time, it's a little bit more of interest to us. You know, whenever you get engineering data like that, the bigger the pool of information you can get the better your data is. So we'll do that on all three," Shannon said.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/discovery.jpg

Another key aspect of the shuttle retirement effort is saving critical hardware for reuse on next-generation vehicles. Removal of Discovery's three main engines and the two orbital maneuvering system (OMS) pods on the ship's tail will occur in the coming weeks, and both sets of engines will be preserved by NASA for possible use on future vehicles instead of going with the shuttle to the museum.

"The main engines are an extremely valuable asset and I want to save all of our Block 2 SSMEs that we have. We have a plan to store them in a purged, safe environment along with all the ground systems required to maintain them until we decide what to do with the next program," Shannon said.

"So what we did is we really searched facilities for excess hardware we could build up into some main engines. We've been doing that recently. We'll have 9 engines we'll put into each of the vehicles that are older technology engines, but they're real nozzles that flew, they're real combustion chambers, real pumps. So we'll take out the really good engines that we'd like to save for the next program and put in re-built engines that we kinda scrapped together. That is what will be displayed.

"I'm also trying to find enough funds and enough parts to build some static engines that we can display with those vehicles as well, so people can see how big and how complex they really are.

"I'm also trying to save the OMS engines, the small orbital maneuvering system engines on the back. Same reason. If we can use them in a future program, I think they're very valuable assets. We don't have a lot of spares on those, so those probably are going to be mocked up (for the museum). At least a nozzle, but probably nothing behind it in the OMS pod."

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/

---------------------------------------------------------------

Discovery heads into retirement
BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 28, 2011

Technicians in bay No. 2 of Kennedy Space Center's Orbiter Processing Facility remove shuttle Discovery's forward reaction control system (FRCS) on March 22 as part of the ship's transition and retirement processing. The FRCS will be completely cleaned of all toxic fuel and oxidizer chemicals, which are used for the steering jet system while a shuttle is in orbit. NASA says the FRCS will then be put back into Discovery to help prepare the shuttle for future public display.

Photos by NASA

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/01.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/03.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/04.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/05.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/06.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/09.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/12.jpg


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110327retire/gallery.html

[GioFX]

In corso lo l'ultimo stacking del programma STS!

Stacking of final shuttle rocket boosters underway
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 29, 2011

The last-ever set of space shuttle solid-fuel rockets began taking shape Tuesday evening as technicians started stacking the boosters that will power Atlantis this summer.

Inside Kennedy Space Center's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building, the left-aft segment was hoisted out of the handling crate around 5:30 p.m., slowly maneuvering into high bay No. 1 and then onto the mobile launch platform.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/110329srb/srbaft.jpg

The assembly process will take a couple of weeks to complete. When the work is finished, the twin boosters will stand 149 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter.

Each motor is packed with 1.1 million pounds of propellant and burns about five tons per second. The rubber-like fuel, poured in like cookie dough and hardened to resemble the texture of a pencil eraser, is a blend of aluminum powder, ammonium perchlorate, HB polymer, iron oxide and an epoxy curing.

Built by Alliant Techsystems, the rockets provide 80 percent of the thrust that propel the space shuttle off the ground. A single shuttle solid rocket booster generates up to 3.3 million pounds of thrust during ascent.

The external fuel tank is in the Vehicle Assembly Building awaiting the its next move. Currently located across the aisle in the high bay No. 2-East checkout cell being readied for flight, the tank will be mated to the solids by month's end.

Atlantis is undergoing final testing at the nearby orbiter processing facility for her 33rd voyage. She will be rolled to the VAB for mounting to the tank and boosters in early May.

Launch of this final space shuttle mission is targeted for June 28 at 3:40 p.m. EDT to deliver a massive amount of supplies to the International Space Station using the Italian-made Raffaello cargo vessel.

Speaking with reporters in Houston last week, Atlantis astronaut Sandy Magnus said bringing the shuttle home for landing one last time will be a highly emotional event.

"It's going to be very sad. Actually, I told (commander Chris Ferguson) that I'm probably going to be crying when we land just because it's just so sad," she said.

"The shuttle has given so much to the country. You look at the different kind of missions it can do, and it built the space station, it's done science missions that range from taking the Spacelab up to big radar missions we've done, it's done astronomy, it's done biological science, material science, and then it's done satellite deploy, repair and retrieve. It's an incredible legacy that this vehicle has given us."

Ferguson and Magnus will be joined by pilot Doug Hurley and flight engineer Rex Walheim on the 12-day flight, returning to KSC for landing July 10 around 11 a.m. EDT.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/110329srb/srblift.jpg


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/110329srb/

[GioFX]

SFN:

Space shuttle retirement museums announced
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: April 12, 2011

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--Ending months of suspense, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Tuesday announced the winners of a national competition to display the agency's three space shuttles after the fleet is retired and decommissioned later this year, choosing sites in Florida, California and, as expected, the Washington, D.C., area.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110412museums/12museum_400292.jpg
An artist's concept of the space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center's public display. Credit: Delaware North

Speaking on the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight on April 12, 1981, Bolden said the shuttle Discovery, NASA's senior orbiter, will be displayed near Washington at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

The shuttle Atlantis will remain at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a final flight in late June while the Endeavour, awaiting launch April 29 on a space station resupply mission, will be displayed at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

"First, here at the Kennedy Space Center where every shuttle mission and so many other historic human space flights have originated, we'll showcase my old friend, Atlantis," Bolden said, standing on a podium in front of Atlantis' open processing hangar. "Not only will the workers who sent it into space so many times have a chance to still see it, the millions of visitors who come here every year to learn more about space and to be a part of the excitement of exploration will be able to see what is still a great rarity, an actual flown space vehicle.

"The California Science Center in Los Angeles, only a few miles from the site of the old Rockwell (International) plant where the shuttle was developed and from where its construction was managed, will be the new home for the shuttle on the launch pad, preparing for its final mission, Endeavour.

"The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, will get Discovery, our most traveled orbiter. And New York City's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum ... will get Enterprise, our prototype orbiter that tested the aerodynamics of the craft before it flew into space."

Other shuttle artifacts will be displayed at museums across the country.

Shuttle simulators will be displayed at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum of McMinnville, Ore., and Texas A&M's Aerospace Engineering Department.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle, which bid for one of the space shuttles, will receive a full fuselage shuttle trainer and the National Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, another unsuccessful applicant, will display a crew compartment trainer and nose cap assembly.

Flight deck commander and pilot seats will be displayed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston while orbital maneuvering system rocket engines will be sent to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

In addition, heat shield tiles will be offered to interested schools and universities.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110412museums/intrepid.jpg
An artist's concept of the space

"We want to thank all of the locations that expressed an interest in one of these national treasures," Bolden said in a statement. "This was a very difficult decision, but one that was made with the American public in mind. In the end, these choices provide the greatest number of people with the best opportunity to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA's remarkable space shuttle program. These facilities we've chosen have a noteworthy legacy of preserving space artifacts and providing outstanding access to U.S. and international visitors."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., praised the decision to display Atlantis in Florida, saying "it's only fitting that Kennedy Space Center is the final home of one of these great spaceships, Atlantis," he said. "We all hope that generations of visitors and generations of Americans will enjoy and learn by understanding this magnificent program, America's space exploration program."

But the decision was a major disappointment to supporters of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the shuttle mission control center and astronaut training facilities, the National Museum at Wright-Patterson and the other unsuccessful applicants.

In a post-announcement teleconference, a reporter asked "What do you say to Houston? Obviously we have the history, we're the fourth largest city in the nation, we have a great international airport, we have a pretty diverse community. I don't know where we failed."

"Houston did not in any way, shape or form, fail," said Olga Dominguez, NASA's associate administrator for strategic infrastructure. "It has always been a critical piece of NASA's shuttle and space program. We just did not have enough to go around."

Another reporter pointed out that 61 percent of the nation's population lives within a one-day drive of the Wright-Patterson museum "and what they offer is totally open and free to the public, which some of these other places aren't."

Dominguez said, "again, part of what we did for our criteria was to collect the best value for the American public as far as educational and outreach, as well as the size of domestic population and the other factors we discussed. I wish we had enough orbiters to send to every (organization) who applied and was qualified. But we only have three."

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, reportedly wants an investigation by the General Accountability Office.

"NASA ignored the intent of Congress and the interests of taxpayers," he said, according to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "NASA was directed to consider regional diversity when determining shuttle locations. Unfortunately, it looks like regional diversity amounts to which coast you are on, or which exit you use on I-95. Even more insulting to taxpayers is that having paid to build the shuttles, they will now be charged to see them at some sites."

But Wright-Patterson Air Force Base museum director Jack Hudson took the decision in stride, telling the Middletown Journal "we respect the decision and wish the winners the best."

In a taped message from orbit, space station flight engineer Catherine "Cady" Coleman, told the shuttle work force "we will miss the capabilities and the beauty of the space shuttle. It has been a national icon for innovation and exploration for 30 years. But its legacy and yours lives on with the work we do here on the ISS. The retirement of the shuttle fleet should not be seen as an end. It represents the next step in extending humanity's reach farther into space."


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110412museums/

[lzeppelin]

Salve ragazzi, la settimana scorsa sono stato al Kennedy Space Center...mannaggia la miseria che figata quel posto! l'ET e gli SRB fanno paura visti da vicino, per non parlare del Saturno 5 disteso in orrizzontale mastodontico...
Volevo capire una cosa, tutti quegli oggetti in mostra (Orbiter, SRB, ET e razzi vari tipo Titan e Atlas) sono fedeli riproduzioni costruiti da zero o sono stati assemblati da pezzi di recupero di macchine che hanno volato realmente o che dovevano volare?
li per li non ci avevo pensato a questo quesito perchè ero troppo emozionato a stare in mezzo a quelle macchine...

[GioFX]

Ma dai che figata, beato te led!

Mi pare che gran parte siano riproduzioni (come l'orbiter Explorer) e altri sono in tutto o in parte prototipi o hardware utilizzato per test statico, ecc.

[GioFX]

E infine, anche questo momento è giunto.

Booster stacking finished for final shuttle flight
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: April 18, 2011

The past week saw the upper solid-fuel motor segments attached and the nose caps set in place atop the final space shuttle rocket boosters, completing the last buildup in the program's three-decade history.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/images/ni1104/18srbs_400270.jpg

Lifting of the motor segments occurred as planned last Monday and Wednesday, followed by the forward assemblies on Thursday night and Friday morning. The completed boosters now await the planned April 25 mating of the external fuel tank.

The reusable boosters, built by ATK, will provide the primary thrust to propel the space shuttle Atlantis away from Earth during the initial two minutes of flight on June 28.

The 11 sections on each Atlantis booster are a mixture of refurbished and unflown elements. The forward dome for the right-hand booster, for example, hasn't launched before.

There's even historic hardware dating back to the very first space shuttle mission in 1981 incorporated into Atlantis' boosters to fly on the final launch 30 years later.

The upper cylinder on Atlantis' left booster flew with Columbia on STS-1, powering the program's maiden voyage with John Young and Bob Crippen.

In all, Atlantis' twin boosters have reused segments and pieces that trace back to 59 previous shuttle launches and 12 ground test-firings.

Detailed history information about Atlantis' two boosters can be seen in this PDF download here (http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/fdf/135srbs.pdf).

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/110418srbs/

[GioFX]

Lancio approvato per l'Endeavour il prossimo 29 aprile! (a breve apertura del thread apposito).

SFN:

Reviewers clear shuttle Endeavour for April 29 launch
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: April 19, 2011

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/images/ni1104/19endeavour_400270.jpg

NASA managers attending an executive-level flight readiness review Tuesday formally cleared the shuttle Endeavour for launch April 29 on its 25th and final mission, a four-spacewalk flight to deliver supplies, spare parts and a $2 billion particle physics detector to the International Space Station.

[...]


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110419frr/

[GioFX]

SFN:

President Obama to attend Endeavour's final launch
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: April 20, 2011

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110420obama/20obama_400288.jpg

President Obama will attend next week's launch of space shuttle Endeavour, the first time since 1998 a sitting president has visited the Kennedy Space Center to view a manned blastoff, according to a White House official.

[...]


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/110420obama/

[GioFX]

Rilasciate le foto dell'ISS con lo shuttle Endavour, unica (ed ultima) sequenza di immagini con lo Shuttle attraccato alla ISS completa.

SFN:

Soyuz pictures of shuttle and station finally released

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/images/ni1106/07soyuz400267.jpg

It was "the ultimate photo op" as Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli, inside the departing Soyuz TMA-20 capsule, snapped pictures of the International Space Station with shuttle Endeavour docked at the orbiting complex.


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/

---

Foto (cliccare per la versione in alta risoluzione):

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/01.jpg (http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-27/hires/iss027e036630.jpg)

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/02.jpg (http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-27/hires/iss027e036619.jpg)

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/03.jpg (http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-27/hires/iss027e036636.jpg)

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/04.jpg (http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-27/hires/iss027e036656.jpg)

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/05.jpg (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/557331main_iss027e036710_full.jpg)

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/soyuz/06.jpg (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/557331main_iss027e036710_full.jpg)

[ciccioweb]

Ciao,
volevo sapere se esiste qualche fonte (aricolo scientifico oppure altro) che riporta il classico profilo di rientro dello Shuttle, in particolare sono interessato alla fase di blackout delle comunicazioni. Grazie

[GioFX]

Beh, non c'è niente di meglio per cominciare che il Reference Manual ufficiale della NASA:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html

In particolare, per la fase di rientro:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_mes.html#mes_entry

Un articolo interessante sul tema è stato pubblicato l'anno scorso su BBC h2g2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6381038

Specifico sul blackout delle comunicazioni:
http://www.spaceacademy.net.au/spacelink/blackout.htm

[Vinsneuve]

In particolare, per la fase di rientro:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_mes.html#mes_entry


Salve!:)

Spesso durante la fase di rientro a pochi minuti dall'arrivo su pista viene trasmessa una ripresa video di una telecamera a bordo dello shuttle con lo sfondo del paesaggio e l'HUD dell'altitudine che scorre.....

Mi chiedevo se questa sequenza video viene registrata anche durante la prima fase della discesa quando il velivolo entra in contatto con l'atmosfera con un angolo di 40° riscaldandosi.
Ho provato a cercare ma niente.....

E' una sequenza video che non hanno mai fatto vedere per scelta o per motivi tecnici?

Grazie.:)

[GioFX]

Non credo sia mai stata registrata una ripresa dalla camera dell'HUD... credo che in fase EI (Entry Interface) durante la transizione con il plasma la visuale sia pressoché nulla.

[ciccioweb]

Beh, non c'è niente di meglio per cominciare che il Reference Manual ufficiale della NASA:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html

In particolare, per la fase di rientro:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_mes.html#mes_entry

Un articolo interessante sul tema è stato pubblicato l'anno scorso su BBC h2g2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6381038

Specifico sul blackout delle comunicazioni:
http://www.spaceacademy.net.au/spacelink/blackout.htm

Grazie mille... GioFX
CIAO

[GioFX]

NASA.gov:

NASA's 747 SCAs - Birds of a Feather Flock Together

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/577341main2_ED11-0237-18_672.jpg
NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905 (front) and 911 (rear) were captured by photographer Carla Thomas as they flew in formation over the Rio Tinto Borax mine west of Boron, Calif. (NASA / Carla Thomas)

Versione alta risoluzione: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/577337main_ED11-0237-18.jpg

For the first time ever, NASA's two highly modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft briefly flew in formation over the Edwards Air Force Base test range Aug. 2. Both aircraft were scheduled to be in the air on the same day, NASA 911 (foreground) on a flight crew proficiency flight, NASA 905 (rear) on a functional check flight following maintenance operations. Since both aircraft were scheduled to be in the air at the same time, SCA pilot Jeff Moultrie of Johnson Space Center's Aircraft Operations Directorate took the opportunity to have both SCA's fly in formation for about 20 minutes while NASA photographer Carla Thomas captured still and video imagery from a NASA Dryden F/A-18. In addition to Moultrie, NASA 905's check flight crew included pilot Arthur "Ace" Beall and flight engineer Henry Taylor while NASA 911 was flown by Larry LaRose, Steve Malarchick and Bob Zimmerman from NASA Johnson and Frank Batteas and Bill Brockett from NASA Dryden.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/577344main2_ED11-0237-24_672.jpg
NASA's two modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft were captured by photographer Carla Thomas as they flew in formation over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's complex of buildings can be seen on the edge of the lakebed immediately below NASA 911. (NASA / Carla Thomas)

Versione alta risoluzione: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/577342main_ED11-0237-24.jpg

Nota: nella pagina originale c'è anche un video.

Vedi:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/birds_of_a_feather.html

[GioFX]

SFN.com:

Shuttle swap spawns nose-to-nose showdown
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: August 11, 2011

Two space shuttle orbiters swapped places at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday as NASA prepares the retired spaceships for public display in museums.

The shuttle Endeavour backed out of its processing hangar as Discovery was towed from its storage location inside the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building. The orbiters were briefly seen together on the tow road between the processing facilities and the VAB.

After keeping Discovery inside the VAB since mid-July, workers will renew their focus on NASA's shuttle fleet leader and get it ready to depart the space center next spring bound for the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in suburban Washington.

Endeavour will take a break from retirement preparations as Atlantis continues safing activities following its return from the last space shuttle flight in July.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/01.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/02.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/03.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/04.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/05.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/06.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/07.jpg

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/08.jpg


http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110811twoshuttles/

[GioFX]

Su NSF c'è un bell'articolo aggiornato con le nuove date e i dettagli su come avverrà il trasferimento degli orbiter alle loro nuove case il prossimo anno.

NasaSpaceFlight.com:

Endeavour and Discovery swap places – New retirement dates planned

Link: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/08/endeavour-discovery-swap-places-new-retirement-dates-planned/