Working with astronaut pilots

A major part of my job is following hardware issues and development issues for the Orbiter systems. I work with astronauts (while they are between mission assignments) and attend the Vehicle Engineering Control Board (VECB). The Space Shuttle Program has three levels (Level I, II, and III), and different decisions are made at these different levels. I track all the different issues the VECB is working on and make sure that "my" astronaut is properly prepared on all the items prior to attendance at the board. Currently, I work with Kevin Kregel, a Shuttle Commander who has flown twice as pilot and once as commander. He is supervising the Shuttle branch (including both astronauts and non-astronauts) of the astronaut office and was just recently re-assigned as commander of STS-99. Kevin is the Level 2 and Level 3 representative to the Shuttle Program out of the astronaut office. I attend the VECB meetings with him or for him, if he is unable to attend. I attend these meetings to represent the astronauts and make sure that their views are presented on various issues at the board.

I also do a lot of work with Landing and Rollout in the astronaut office. I worked this project with Chris "Gus" Loria for awhile and Charles "Scorch" Hobaugh will be taking Gus' place when he transfers to a new technical job. For this job, I travel to the Ames Research Center in California, at least twice a year, for the VMS (Vertical Motion Simulator) engineering testing. The most recent time we did this was August of this year, and the next test is scheduled for February 1999. These sessions usually are six weeks in length.

The first three weeks are normally spent doing engineering studies on ways to improve the handling characteristics of the Orbiter during the landing/rollout phase of the flight. For example, one of the things they've discussed and worked on is the development of a new design for extending the nose gear on the shuttle by about 25 inches to have softer slapdown loads on the nosewheel as it contacts the runway. The problem is that extending the nose gear wouldn't allow the gear to fit in the wheel well, so they developed a telescoping nose gear concept. They were looking at this to help save wear and tear on the tires and structure of the shuttle. It is still a work in progress. We also worked on crosswind studies during this last time at Ames which proved to be very interesting. These studies are necessary to know which kinds of winds the shuttle can safely land in.

Once we get through the engineering studies, the pilots fly their T-38s out to Ames, and we begin putting them through a training matrix. Each pilot is put in the simulator for a number of runs. During these runs, we put in different kinds of failures -- such as changing the crosswinds, blowing tires, taking out nosewheel steering, no chute, etc. -- and they practice landing the shuttle with these landing conditions. It's the most realistic training they get in any of our simulators, aside from actually flying the shuttle. This simulator, at Ames, is the best trainer we have for landing, touching down, and rolling out. The simulator run is started at about 10,000 feet altitude, and the pilots fly in from there. They also practice landing on different runways within the U.S. and abroad in the event they must land at an alternate landing site due to some problem. In the history of the program we have landed once at Northrup (early in the program), several times at Edwards, and the last 30 or 40 missions have landed at KSC (Kennedy Space Center).

During STS-95 I worked as a SPAN Manager, which presents a nice change of pace for me. SPAN stands for Shuttle Problem Analysis. This area is in a backroom area of MCC, where the engineering folks back up the flight controllers. If problems occur the flight control team will work closely with the engineers in the MER (Mission Evaluation Room). There's an MER manager and a SPAN manager. As a SPAN manager, my job was to be like the go-between on all the problems, electronically tracking problem reports (PR) and making sure these problems were getting resolutions. This process begins when a flight controller submits a PR. I usually get scheduled for several of these shifts during flights.

When the drag chute door came off during the launch of the shuttle on STS-95 it presented a potential problem that could occur during re-entry and landing. Several meetings were held at JSC to discuss how to operate the shuttle during landing should the chute deploy prematurely during re-entry. NASA management, the engineers, and the astronaut office felt confident that it wouldn't come out. We (Gus, Scorch, a few other guys and I) did some landing runs in the Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS) while the mission was up to experiment with inadvertent deployments of the chute at different altitudes. We were trying to figure out how the different scenarios would affect the handling characteristics of the shuttle.

This was then discussed with the crew -- what would happen if it deployed and how they should handle it. Curt Brown, the commander, knew to immediately come off (or let go of) the stick, or RHC (Rotational Hand Control). The pilot, Steve Lindsey, knew he just needed to hit the jettison button and the chute would have been gone. (The jettison button, when hit, lets go of whatever was attached and kind of pushes it off into space.) The only thing we were truly concerned about was if the chute deployed while the shuttle was under 140 feet in altitude during the final landing phase. At this altitude, the commander would not have enough time to react, and we potentially could lose the shuttle and the crew. Luckily the chute didn't deploy, and it turned out that the chute was in pristine condition and could have been used. However, no one knew that at the time, and everyone chose the conservative approach. The reason that the door came off is still under investigation.

The one thing that makes my job so interesting is that I work with primarily astronaut pilots. They are a very fun and interesting group of folks who have a lot of interesting stories to tell about their experiences flying all types of military aircraft. I still want to learn to fly myself and hopefully will begin taking flying lessons next year.