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Space Team Online Updates PART 1: World Space Week is Coming WORLD SPACE WEEK IS COMING
There will be a lot happening next week. Not only will we have the week-long programming in connection with Classroom Connect, but we will also focus October 5th on the Women of NASA with a full day of chats and webcasts. If all goes as planned we will then bring you the launch of STS-92 live from the Press Site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I will be there helping to coordinate the activities, and hope to write some journals so that you can share the experience. You may have noticed this week that we went live with the New NASA Quest web pages. As may be anticipated, there have been and are still some glitches. We will be straightening those out as quickly as we can. Please bear with us, and don't hesitate to help us to make this a useful tool for you. Let me hear from you, Linda Conrad lindac@quest.nasa.gov UPCOMING EVENTS:
Please be sure to visit each site before the scheduled time. Usually these events require pre-registration and some include preparation. ->October 2-5 - World Space Week, with a launch * Monday, October 2 - 10-11am PDT (1-2pm EDT, 5-6pm GMT) Lonnie Moffitt who follows hardware development on the orbiter, keeping the astronaut office up to date. He also works with the astronauts who are working technical jobs between flight assignments. Read Lonnie's profile at: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/team/moffitt.html Pre-register and join the chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/events/cc * Tuesday, October 3 - 10-11am PDT (1-2pm EDT, 5-6pm GMT) David Hamilton who is a dive specialist, training astronauts in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (a giant swimming pool) to do space walks (extra-vehicular activities) and to manipulate robotics on orbit. Read Davids's profile at: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/team/hamilton.html Pre-register and join the chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/events/cc * Wednesday, October 4 - 10-11am PDT (1-2pm EDT, 5-6pm GMT) Joe Delai who works with the contractors to design, manufacture, test and implement hardware for the International Space Station. Joe will be co-hosting our series "Under Construction - The International Space Station" from the Kennedy Space Center this school year. Read Joe's profile at: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/team/delai.html Pre-register and join the chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/events/cc * Thursday October 5 - Join us for this day long series of interactive chats, forums, and webcasts featuring a diverse group of female NASA role models hosted by our Young Women of NASA Advisory Council members. See schedule at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/women/oct5schedule.html * Thursday, October 5 - The day will culminate with a webcast live from the launch of STS-92 at Kennedy Space Center. Join us from http://quest.nasa.gov/space/events/ksc * Friday, October 6, 10-11am PDT (1-2pm EDT, 5-6pm GMT) Janis Davis-Street, nutritionist, who is a part of a team whose job is determining the nutritional requirements for space flight, that is, finding out what foods and nutrients are important for the astronauts as they venture into space. Read Janis' profile at: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/team/davis.html Pre-register and join the chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/events/cc ->Wednesday, October 11, 9-10 am PDT (noon-1pm EDT, 5-6:00pm GMT) Chat with Bill Todd while he is underwater. Bill is a simulation supervisor in Spaceflight Training, responsible for developing and executing the simulations used for training the astronauts and flight control teams who will work the missions to build the International Space Station. Bill will be chatting with us from Aquarias, an underwater habitat used to simulate the space environment. Read Bill's profile at: http://quest.nasa.gov/space/team/todd.html Pre-register and join the chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/common/events.cgi?prj_sto ->Thursday, October 12, 10 -11 am PDT (1-2:00pm EDT, 5-6:00pm GMT) QuestChat with Sharon Cobb who researches and studies new materials to determine how they will be affected by gravity. Pre-register and join this chat from: http://quest.nasa.gov/common/events.cgi?prj_sto To see a complete listing of NASA Quest's offerings, see the schedule of events at: http://quest.nasa.gov/common/events [Editor's note: Here's your chance to virtually sit in on console with Robert during the just completed mission of STS-106.] FLIGHT STS106/2A.2B - DRY RUN FOR 5A
by Robert Dempsey September 19, 2000 Over the past few years I have tried to chronicle both the Destiny Lab Module's and my own development as we progress towards the mission scheduled for early next year. As part of my training, I will actually be working the front room console position for the ODIN (Onboard Data Information Network - a fancy way to say the computer system on ISS) during the 2A.2B flight. This flight will provide critical supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) that will be used by the first permanent crew starting later this fall. Therefore, I will attempt to detail the actual mission during the 10-day flight. As this is the only actual assembly mission (I do routinely work with the components of ISS currently on orbit) I will work before the 5A Laboratory mission, I consider this sort of a dry run for that very critical, and very busy flight. Not that 2A.2B is not a tough mission for ODIN. In fact, we have one of the toughest tasks of this mission. Currently, two computers called the Node Multiplexer/DeMultiplexer or MDMs are controlling the unmanned ISS. An MDM is just a basic type of computer (for perspective they operate using a 386 Intel chip!). They are running a version of software that is labeled Release 1 (or R1). However, this is an "old" version of software that does not have all the features the crew will need to operate the station until the more powerful Lab computers are brought up. During the flight, we will load a new version of the software called Release 2 (R2). This is like upgrading your home computer from Windows 95 to Windows 98. However, we will have to do it from the ground via a radio link rather than an easy to use CD! We anticipate that it will take about 20 hours to upgrade both computers. It is a complicated process. We load the software on one computer first and then re-boot the computer. After we are sure that it is working correctly we will need to load the second one. Although we could do this anytime, we prefer to do it when the shuttle is there because that gives us a second communication path to use for loading the software, just in case something happens to one path. As you can imagine, if you are half way through loading Windows 98 and the system crashes, it is very hard to recover. Without the shuttle's communication systems, the ground normally has one communication path to the Node computers. (Technically, we can communicate through the Russian systems but this can only be done over Russian ground sites. Since they only have a few, and the ISS is not over Russia for very long, the window for communication is about 40 minutes per DAY rather than the roughly 20 hours per day through the U.S. system). There will be three of us ODIN flight controllers working the mission -- divided into three teams or "orbits" as they are called. I am on the second shift or Orbit 2 Team. Although we have other tasks to do, the big one is the R2 uplink. I will start it on my shift about three days into the mission (the same day the shuttle docks with the station). The first computer should finish up on the next shift and they will start the second computer. The second computer will complete its load on the shift after that. Launch is only a few days away and we are both excited and nervous, as we get busy making sure all the final preparations are complete. Day 1, 02:30 CDT-- The launch went off flawlessly this morning. Since we don't dock for two days there is not much, related to the mission, that we can do on this shift except plan and be ready. So, I am carefully going over all the procedures, making sure the last minute changes are all incorporated, and ensuring the mission plan is correct and that all the commands we need to "build" are ready. The biggest objective of the Command and Data Handling (C&DH) team for this mission is to upload the R2 software to the station computers. Day 2, 01:30 CDT -- Docking was also flawless. I came in early just so I could see it. The atmosphere is much different then during other phases of a mission. The normal, quiet hum of the control room is gone -- replaced by nearly complete silence. The flight director wants everyone sharp and ready for any crew call downs if a problem occurs. After the docking is made there is a sigh of relief but immediately, everyone jumps into quiet action reconfiguring their systems for the combined Shuttle-Station "stack". Only in the movies does the flight control team jump up, cheer and clap hands. Everyone is busy and professional. Day 3, 08:40 CDT -- After docking, we performed some station configuration (mainly with the environmental systems to get ready for ingressing the station in a couple of days) and began uplinking (the process where we begin sending the software load commands to the station) the R2 software. It is a very slow process. Much like downloading something from the Internet, you get that small window showing the status bar and creeping along at 30%, 31%, 32% and so on. Five hours later we are done with the first computer load. But there is no joy today. There is a signature, called the checksum, which we expect to be a certain value when the load is complete which tells us that everything went up correctly. The value doesn't match that from testing. Apparently, in the 12 million bits of data sent up, some didn't make it. Fortunately, we had seen this in testing and prepared for it. Therefore, we have to start over. Day 4, 00:30 CDT -- Came in and found that the subsequent shifts had completed the software load to the primary computer. They rebooted it and, as we say in this business, "Joy!". Everything appears nominal (NASA speak for normal). The backup computer load is at 72%, but paused since we currently don't have communications to the station. Glorious pictures from the EVA -- but too busy working. Can only occasionally look up to see the pictures. Day 4, 00:35 CDT -- In some confusion, a ground commander sent the wrong command. The net effect is that the load was aborted. Hours of work lost. Frustration. We start it all over. Day 4, 09:15 CDT -- Just got a message that one of the elements on the primary computer is showing failed. This is a channel in the computer to a temperature-measuring device that will not be installed until the 4A mission. While it does not impact us (since the device is not yet present), it is a concern as to perhaps there is a problem with part of the computer that would be reading that data. Day 4, 10:30 CDT -- The load is complete. We rebooted the computer and it looks good. The two computers are now running with the new and improved software. Our biggest hurdle is over. Day 5, 03:30 CDT -- Stepped off console to attend an Anomaly Resolution Team (ART) meeting to discuss this intermittent failure error we have been seeing. Although we are pretty sure that this does not impact this mission, it is critical that we understand what is going on. Since this is new software we need to be aware if a software change has occurred or if a potentially serious problem with the computer is in development. The data so far indicates that one of the channels on the card has a small offset. Day 6, 07:21 CDT -- Very slow, quiet night. No activities tonight, so just monitoring the system. Looking ahead for the next day's activities. Just realized I started this job three years ago this week. Three years of hard training and this is my first mission! Day 7, 03:02 CDT -- Well, today was supposed to be quiet. However, last night one of the Russian computers failed. They have three that work together (in what is called a voting scheme). Before the flight, one went off line. Since they still had two, there was no attempt made to reboot it. Now another one has gone offline. While the station can still operate with only one Russian computer, one more problem and we could be in trouble. And a critical operation - undocking - is coming up. So the Russians will have to reboot their system. Working on a plan. Day 7, 06:35 CDT -- Today has been a very busy day, which is good because many on the team are getting tired. Although I have tried to adjust my sleep, and have been doing this for a week, I am still not sleeping well. After many long days of wearing a headset with a multitude of voices going in the ear, you toss and turn in bed, thinking you still hear voices. Today we are working on putting a plan together for the Russian reboot of their computer system. The U.S. and Russian computers are now fully integrated. Therefore, when they reboot, our side will see a temporary loss of their computers. Nominally, when our system sees an unexpected loss of theirs, it begins reconfiguration to regain the communication link. We do not want this to occur because we know there is no serious problem and furthermore it can take many hours to reconfigure our system to where it is now. Finally, it could set off alarms that could wake the crew when this is run on the next shift. In addition, we are making plans in case for some reason our system does not behave correctly and does go through the reconfiguration despite our efforts. That is how we do things here -- plan and then plan for any possible contingency. Keeps us busy during these early mornings.... Day 8, 06:12 -- Now things are quiet, but a little bit ago we had a scare. During the egress of the station, we suddenly got a red warning alarm indicating a fire in the Russian segment. Suddenly, the entire team jumps into action checking their data to determine what happened. Quickly and efficiently, the team determines it is a false alarm caused by dust being kicked up by the crew as they close out the space station. The alarm does cause some of the systems on board to reconfigure so we do spend the next hour getting the station back to its previous state. Day 9 -- The final day and saw a beautiful meteor over JSC as I was driving in at 1 a.m. If that is not a fitting ending omen I don't know what is! This morning the shuttle successfully undocked from the station. Our work is done. My job on this shift is to make sure all the paperwork is closed out and there are no items for the mission, for us, left undone. Of course, it will be several days before the mission is completely over; the shuttle will land in Florida on Wednesday. Today I am getting ready to hand over operations of the station to the Station Duty Officer (SDO). His job is to monitor the station 24 hours a day by himself and page in appropriate people should some alarm sound. Once the first permanent station crew goes up in November, the teams will man the control center 24 hours a day. STATUS OF ORBITER PROCESSING
RE MISSION: STS-92, 100th Shuttle Mission scheduled for launch October 5 Prelaunch processing of Shuttle Discovery continues to go well at Launch Pad 39A. Engineers performed another Helium Signature Test earlier today and confirmed that leak repair efforts on the orbiter's main propulsion system were successful. Orbiter aft compartment closeouts are now in work. Main engine flight readiness testing begins tomorrow evening. Preparations are also beginning for Shuttle ordnance installation on Thursday. Milestones: Orbiter aft compartment close-outs begin . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 26 Space Shuttle main engine flight readiness test begins. . . . . Sept. 27 Ordnance installation complete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 28 Flight Readiness Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 28 Crew arrives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct 1 Payload bay doors closed for flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct 2
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