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UPDATE # 62 - December 4, 1998 PART 1: The ISS is off the ground THE ISS IS OFF THE GROUND!
I'm sure some of you have noticed that we are webcasting live coverage of the International Space Station events, including the two launches so far. It's finally happening! The first coupling of this giant tinkertoy is happening now. If you missed these first midnight launches, the launch archives are posted at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/launch As the journals below indicate, many of our STO team members are shifting to the ISS project. Stay tuned as we follow the progress of the assembly of the station. We have live programs and curriculum in the works and will let you know as they become available. It's hard to believe December is here and with it, for many, comes the winter break. I plan to publish one more Updates this month, and then I will take advantage of the extra time to beef up the website, preparing for some great adventures ahead. Do continue to follow the puzzle. I will be posting the questions weekly on site - A good vacation project for "connected kids!" Keep in touch, Linda UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS
QuestChats require pre-registration. To register go to: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/chats ->QuestChat: Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 2 PM Pacific Time (5 PM Eastern): Luis Rodriguez, whose primary responsibility as a senior safety engineer is to make sure that design engineers and scientists use NASA-approved materials, chemicals, and electrical components when designing their experiments, will accept questions in English and Spanish during this chat. His profile also exists in English: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/rodriguez.html and en espanol: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/rodriguez-esp.html And see his journal below. ->December 16 at 10 AM Pacific (1:00 PM Eastern) Tour of the International Space Station mockup and training facility. Each month you are invited to join our tour guide at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. You will be able to ask your questions during the tour and have them answered during the event. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/tours/ THIS WEEK'S STO PUZZLE QUESTION: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/puzzle A mystery picture is covered by jigsaw puzzle pieces. Answer the challenge questions by the deadline, and you will be sent the passwords to uncover the picture. When the entire picture has been exposed, identify the subject of the picture and write a description. Scoring will be based on timely, accurate and complete responses. This weeks question: Deadline: 12/12/98 The Space Shuttle and everything in it are kept in orbit around the Earth by gravity. But since they're all falling, objects float in a state many call zero gravity (0g). What is the more accurate term for this state of 1x10-6 g? Send your answers to If you missed last week's puzzle, I will leave it up through the weekend and extend the deadline 'til Tuesday the 8th. I'm sorry, I forgot to post it in the Updates last week. [Editor's note: Luis' primary responsibility as a senior safety engineer is to make sure that design engineers and scientists use NASA-approved materials, chemicals and electrical components when designing their experiments. Below he describes his involvement with the International Space Station. Chat with Luis next Wednesday.] SETTING UP IMAX CAMERAS IN SPACE http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/rodriguez.html Interviewed by Lori Keith December 1, l998 I have been keeping very busy lately working on a project concerning the IMAX camera being used to film the assembly of the International Space Station for documentation purposes. This is a special 3-D camera that has flown on the shuttle for many years. My responsibility for this project is to make certain the IMAX camera can be used in all the modules of the space station. This can be difficult when, for instance, the U. S. portion of the Space Station uses a 120 volt power source and the Russian portion uses a 28 volt power source. We began by writing an Interface Control Document (ICD). The ICD is used to account for the interfaces of the equipment with the space station. This includes power, movement and mounting. Everything is critical and must be considered. I work with various other engineers on this project. If we want to mount the camera on a window, this becomes a major undertaking. How is it going to be attached to the window? When is it going to be attached? How many screws will need to be put in the frame of the window? Will those screws affect, break or crack the frame? (Which could cause a loss of pressure in space -- not a good thing!) We have to show that we can do these things safely. We also have to account for the things associated with the camera -- film, sound recorders, etc. The film IMAX records on is on large reels and must be changed by the astronauts frequently. This means the astronauts must be trained to use the cameras and handle the film. They will be the directors, the actors and the photographers of the film. The camera is battery operated, but the lights are not. These lights also consume a lot of power. They also produce heat so they must be placed carefully to avoid any fire or burn hazards. The sound is not recorded on the camera either. It is recorded on a special recorder with stereo sound effect capabilities. It is specially adapted for this situation. If you have ever watched an IMAX film, you know what I mean about the sound. If you have never seen one, you must go and experience this for yourself. The sound recorder can be battery operated or electrical. This all involves power. We have to account for all things attached to power of any sort. This is another interface. This is a very important concept -- interface. Remember, it all begins with the Interface Control Document and works off that. For everything to work properly and not interfere with anything else, everything must interface correctly. Little things must be accounted for, like clearance between the connectors, enough room to plug in all the attachments, etc. All things must be labeled and color coded to NASA standard specifications. Everything must be identifiable and safe. To plug in the lights specific outlets must be used, and they must be compatible with the Space Station's power source. Each connector must be able to alert the crew if it is power compatible. Cables are interchangeable and will have a ballast-like voltage converter built in. All electrical components must be checked for safety and comply with specific requirements regarding tripping hazards. We don't want to trip any circuit breakers. We use fuses to ensure that no extremely large spikes could cause any power shortages or circuit problems. All electronic circuitry must be safe and meet requirements. The IMAX camera is considered a mobile payload. Because of this, we must work with all the others building payloads so we can see how the camera will interface with their stuff. This filming is important documentation for the future. The camera goes up with Flight 2A.1, and the astronauts will begin filming with it on Flight 5A. This camera will return to Earth on Flight 7A and may be replaced by another camera. A different camera will be mounted on the outside to film the beginning stages of assembly. We expect to have a really neat film when we are finished to document this historic construction in space. On another note, I have received the Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Award in October. The president of the company I work for nominated me for this. It is a very prestigious award, and I was so happy that I was even considered, as the worldwide competition is stiff. This is also the 10th anniversary of this award, and all the past winners have been invited to come back for a reunion of sorts. Actor Martin Sheen was the Master of Ceremony for this event. I met him and he was such a nice down-to-earth person. I was able to have my picture taken with him and my wife. It was an honor to meet him. Who would have ever thought I would meet a famous actor at an event for Hispanic engineers? You just never know where life may lead you. My son called me the other day, and he was very excited. He had found a few of my Space Team Online journals as he was surfing the Internet. He thought they were really cool! [Editor's note: Lonnie's work focuses on the operations of the orbiter to "improve the aging fleet of orbiters." Below he relates what we know about the STS-95 mishap with the drag chute door and how it was handled.] WORKING WITH ASTRONAUT PILOTS http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/moffitt.html Interviewer: Lori Keith November 11, l998 A major part of my job is following hardware 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. STATUS OF COLUMBIA PROCESSING
Below, we provide reports on the processing of Shuttle Columbia taken from the detailed daily reports found at the NASA Shuttle Status web site at http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/status.htm At times these reports will contain jargon and unfamiliar terms; our intent is not to confuse you but to provide a glimpse at all the steps involved. Nothing new was reported this week.
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