|
   |
 |
                 
|
S P A C E T E A M O N L I N EUPDATE # 64 - December 31, 1998 PART 1: Happy 1999 HAPPY 1999
By the time I write again it will be "next year." Where did this past year go? I know mine has been full of excitement, as this time last year saw me preparing for the Neurolab flight (STS-90) and the NeurOn project. We helped get them launched and then moved right in to the Challenge Project and STS-95. The dust has hardly settled from that exciting adventure when we jumped right into the preparations for this next Spring. Let me tell you a little about our plans. In April 1999, NASA will be sending its first woman Shuttle commander, Eileen Collins, into space. That seemed an opportune time to join with Women of NASA (another Quest project) to bring you a special focus on women who are pioneers in their fields. We're calling it Female Frontiers, and the soon to open website is developing at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/frontiers It's not too early to set a bookmark at that site. We are busily preparing profiles of "frontierswomen" and assembling curriculum materials to support this feature project. Special focus chats with these outstanding women will begin in January. We were delighted to have been invited last week to interview Eileen, and we'll be bringing that interview to the Website soon. A calendar of events will appear on site within the next couple of days. We have continued the challenge questions at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/puzzle and have extended the deadlines to accommodate those who do not have connectivity at home. See this week's puzzler below. I apologize about forgetting the address for the T-shirts in my last Updates and hope you found the link from STO's top page. The address is: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/common/shirts/ And, yes, we are working on one with the Female Frontier's banner too! Apropos to Women's Firsts, we have collaborated with an aviation historian to help her prepare her Women in Aviation calendar for 1999. She is distributing these calendars on her website at: http://www.womeninaviation.com/order.html Quest is not profiting from the printing or sale of this calendar, but it does feature Eileen Collins, and the connection seemed obvious. I want to wish you the happiest, safest of celebrations to usher in the New Year. Let's work together to make 1999 the best year yet! Linda
CHALLENGE PUZZLE QUESTION #7 http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/puzzle New question: Deadline 1/8/99 On his website, in speaking about his first orbital flight on February 20, l962, in Friendship 7, John Glenn says, "The mission was delayed ___ times, sometimes due to equipment malfunctions or improvements and sometimes due to weather. I actually suited-up on ___ occasions." Fill in the two blanks with the correct numbers. Last week's question: Deadline 1/6/99 In one experiment conducted on the astronauts in STS-95, blood pressure was to be recorded before, during and after the flight to determine the ability of the heart to pump blood to the brain in gravity and microgravity. What is the name of this study? Answers may be submitted from the website above. [Editor's note: Elizabeth works for a group at Johnson Space Center that is in charge of the payloads (the experiments and satellites) that the Shuttle carries into space.] SEEING A NIGHT LAUNCH http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/bloomer.html December 15, l998 Well, I saw my first ever night launch of the Space Shuttle. It wasn't like anything I had ever seen before! I happened to be in Florida on a business trip when the Shuttle was scheduled to launch, so I decided to drive over to Cape Canaveral and see the launch from up close. It was supposed to happen at 4 a.m. on the morning of December 3, so I was at the Kennedy Space Center extra early (about 12:30 a.m.) to make sure I got a good spot. Things seemed to be going well, and everybody was excited about the first Shuttle launch to the Space Station. However, with less than a minute left, the launch was called off. There had been some alarms on the Shuttle, and by the time they discussed what happened it was too late, we had missed the launch window. For those who don't know what a launch window is - sometimes the Shuttle needs to be at a particular place in orbit. This time we needed to meet up with the Russian part of the Space Station that was already in space. So, we had to launch at a certain time. Our launch window for STS-88 was only three minutes long. The alarms came so late in the countdown that people didn't have a lot of time to respond, and we missed the launch window by two seconds. Ugh! So, the next night, everyone was back again, ready to see a launch. This time the launch was scheduled at 3:30 a.m., and we all kept our fingers crossed that it would happen! Well, we got to T-31 seconds, and everyone got really quiet ... and then they kept counting down ... T-5,4,3,2,1 ... Liftoff! It was like the sun was rising - it lit up the whole sky. The ground shook beneath our feet - you could FEEL the power of the Shuttle as it rose into the sky. Of course we all watched and kept our fingers crossed until the solid rocket boosters separated from the shuttle (since the Challenger exploded because of the solid rocket boosters), and then we all relaxed. What a rush! Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone and have a Happy New Year :-) [Editor's note: Keith spends a lot of time in Russia. He and six others take turns leading the operations team for NASA at Russia's Mission Control Center in Moscow.] A YEAR ENDING AND A NEW ERA BEGINNING http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/zimmerman.html December 21, l998 The last four weeks have been very busy. In my last note, I described the FGB launch and the embassy reception. The following week, the Shuttle launched and things got extremely busy. The Shuttle docked to the FGB on December 5, but I didn't see it in person as my shift ended several hours before that time. However, over the next few days I was on duty during some of the most memorable events. There were three spacewalks (I saw two of them) during that week. It was very interesting watching the crew crawl around on the outside of the vehicle performing all types of assembly work. The highlight for me was being on duty when the crew entered the International Space Station for the very first time. There was live TV, and it was very impressive seeing the inside of the new Space Station for the first time. After a week of spacewalks and internal activities, the Shuttle undocked on December 13, and the view was spectacular. Both the Space Station and Shuttle were sending down live TV pictures of each other. The Shuttle flew completely around the station and the view via TV was incredible. I took several photos of the big screens showing the view. After the Shuttle had flown away, there was a great party in a reception room behind the Russian Control Center. There were numerous toasts to the beginning of a new era, the Space Station, international cooperation, etc. It was quite a night! The last few days things have finally started to slow down. Since the Shuttle is back on Earth, and there is no crew on orbit, the Houston Mission Control Center has a full team only three hours a day. The rest of the time there is just a duty officer. Our team's biggest job is to coordinate activities between Houston and Moscow. Now that Houston is working shorter hours, that has significantly reduced our work load. We are only putting in 60-hour weeks now (as opposed to the 75-hour weeks previously). Last week, on the one day I had off, I found out that there would be a symphony that night and decided to go. I bought a standing room only ticket from a scalper for $5. The ticket turned out to be a fake, but they let me in anyway and told me just to find an empty seat. I managed to find one in the second balcony that was unclaimed (I was very lucky. There must have been 50 people who had to stand the whole time). Here is what I got for my money. The concert was given by the Russian National Symphony (the best in the country). The guest soloist was none other than Mstislav Rostropovich (world famous cellist). And, to top it off, the concert was in honor of the 80th birthday of Nobel prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Yes, he was there, sitting about 100 feet away from me). It was one of the best concerts I have ever heard. After it was over, these two world-famous people got together at the front, and Solzhenitsyn made a brief speech thanking everybody for the concert, gifts, well wishes, etc. He also made a joke about Rostroprovich being young (he is only 71). It turns out that the two are close friends. All that for just five bucks. Since I am stuck out here for Christmas, I might as well make the best of it. Our small group is going to get together for dinner. Also, I recently found out that the Bolshoi Theater has started performing "The Nutcracker," and I plan on going to it sometime next week. I only have 20 days left until I return home. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends again. The warm weather will be good too. We had a heat wave in Moscow this week and it got up to +1 C. That is the hottest it has been in over six weeks. S Rozhdyestvom ii s Noviim Godim! That's Russian for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! ----------------------------------------------- P.S. Since most people's computers don't handle Russian fonts, I used English letters to represent the sounds of the Russian letters. Just sound it out. 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. Shimming modifications of Columbia's payload bay aft bulkhead are complete. On December 17 closeouts in the payload bay were under way and the payload bay doors were be closed December 21 for the holiday down period. In the Vehicle Assembly Building, external tank and solid rocket boosters are in high bay and closeouts will resume after the holidays. STS-93 SCHEDULED OPERATIONAL MILESTONES (dates are target only): Payload bay doors closed prior to OPF rollout (Jan. 13) Orbiter weight and center of gravity tests (Jan. 28) Orbiter transferred to VAB for external tank mate (Feb. 1)
|
||
|
|
|
