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S P A C E T E A M O N L I N EUPDATE # 77 - April 5, 1999 PART 1: We have a special visitor this week WE HAVE A SPECIAL VISITOR THIS WEEK
Mike Ciannilli, test project engineer from Kennedy Space Center is here at NASA Quest visiting with us for a few days. His profile is at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/ciannilli.html But you may know Mike better as the personality who walked us through the steps before the launch of STS-95 (you remember, the "John Glenn mission"). The purpose of Mike's visit is to better understand the process by which we broadcast live to you over the Internet so he can better communicate his awesome job to you. Mike volunteers his time to do these webcasts and will host this month's Behind-the-Scenes segment: "Step Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building" on Thursday April 22 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (1 p.m. EST). In case you don't know, the 525-foot tall Vehicle Assembly Building (or VAB as it's called) is one of the largest buildings in the world. Here's a favorite trivia question for you: How big is the U.S. flag painted on the Vehicle Assembly Building? I'll give you a hint that will help you get started. If you'll go to the events page at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/iss/ you'll find a link to a great new resource: Space Team Online's event specific Internet Workshop. It will help you to prepare by, not only answering the above question, but by inspiring thoughts and questions for interaction with Mike in the chat room during the webcast. As with many of our events, the room is already open, so while you learn about the VAB, you can begin to post questions even before we start to broadcast. Do join us for this and the other exciting interactive events listed below. Linda
QuestChats require pre-registration. ->Tuesday, April 6, 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EST) Dale Lueck, as design engineering lead, is involved with designing instruments for chemical analysis and process control. Recently, he was assigned as the design engineering lead for the Analytical Instrumentation Control Group at Kennedy Space Center. Read Dale's profile and field journals at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/lueck.html Register for this chat at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/chats. Thursday, April 8, 1999, 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EST) Dionne Jackson is an analytical chemist responsible for testing and identifying metal alloys that are used as flight hardware and in supporting equipment and structures. Read Dionne Jackson's profile at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/jackson.html Register for this chat at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/chats ->Thursday, April 15, 1999, 9 a.m. PDT (Noon EST) Debra Reiss-Bubenheim is project manager and scientist, Life Sciences Division and is working on an experiment scheduled to fly on the upcoming STS-93 mission. The project will focus on how microgravity effects how the brain develops and communicates with muscles in the body. Read her profile at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/reiss.html Registration for this chat will begin on April 1 at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/chats Thursday, April 22, 10:00 a.m. PST (1 pm EST) ISS-Behind the Scenes: Join us for the continuing series of broadcasts from the Kennedy Space Center ISS program. This month Mike Ciannilli takes us Inside the Vertical Assembly Building, which at this moment houses Columbia (the STS-93 shuttle)! See: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/iss Tuesday, May 11, 1999,10:00 a.m. PDT (1:00 p.m. EST) Meet your Student Ambassadors who will represent you at the launch of STS-93. This Webcast will also serve as an optimum time to test your technologies so you are ready for the live events from Kennedy Space Center in July! Event Page is located at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/frontiers/ambass.html ->Wednesday, May 19, 1999, 10:00 a.m. PDT (1:00 p.m. EST) Tour of the ISS Mockup and Training Facility at JSC Join us for our regularly scheduled guided tour of the International Space Station mockup and training facility at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Information on this event may be found at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/sto/tours For continuing Female Frontiers schedule see: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/schedule.html For April Space Team Online chats see: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/chats FEMALE FRONTIERS PUZZLE
Note: By popular demand, the due dates have been extended to accommodate the different schools' spring break schedules. The puzzle is now online at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/ffpuzzle.html Question #4: Answers due by Wednesday, April 21, 1999 Astronaut Catherine Coleman is the other woman astronaut on STS-93. What is her nickname? Which previous mission(s) was she on and what "team" was she in? ------- Question #3: Answers due by Wednesday, April 14, 1999 Fill in the blanks: Chandra will try to "target the age of the universe". By combining Chandra's data and Drs. John Carlstrom and Marshall Joy's radio interferometers, they will try "to probe tiny fluctuations in the ____________." (also can be put as this 4 letter acronym _____) ------- Question 2: Answers due by Tuesday, April 7, 1999: Why was there a delay in the shipping of the Chandra Observatory to KSC that caused the launched to be postponed to July? Send your answers to Student Ambassador, Stephanie Wong: wongtong@connect.ab.ca Check your personal score at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/events/ffpuzzle/scoring.html RESPONDING TO YOUR NEEDS
Continuing to respond to our latest survey requests and suggestions for improvement: * I'd like to volunteer my time and expertise if needed Wow! Tell me more! Our ability at NASA Quest to provide the service we do to the educational community depends quite often on our willing volunteers. I can't think of enough superlatives to express how much we appreciate our inside NASA volunteers who are willing to reach out to you, our Space Team Online enthusiasts, and the eagerness of many of you to contribute back. Unfortunately, the surveys come through to me pretty much anonymously, so I can't just write back to the individual(s) who expressed interest in helping. Please do let me know in what capacity you wish to contribute to our efforts. You can write to me directly at: * Info on how home-schoolers, aside from public classrooms, might become involved in the chat sessions. * I would like to see more kids involved. * Maybe chats more often and at times after school for schools that don't have Internet access. * Webchats happening after school (past 3:30), accessible to students on the west coast I've lumped these questions together because they all relate to kids and access to our chat sessions. Though the questions are different, they all boil down to "I would like you to make it easier for my kids to participate." I'm with you 100%! Let me address some of the issues and still emphasize that we are continuing to brainstorm ways to solve these issues: -First, as to individual and home-school participation, we have a huge following of this type. Their attendance is usually made easier by a more flexible schedule than a classroom has. Have I missed some point where home school is involved? -We have been experimenting with ways to get around the time issue. We too would like to be able to accommodate other time zones and scheduling difficulties. I mentioned in a recent Updates that one of our restrictions is the schedules of our participants. However, we are addressing the issue and one of our newest attempts is the opening of chat rooms for a period of time before a scheduled chat. Those who cannot be present live may at least place questions into the queue and return to see the answers in the archive. This practice has not happened without criticism, but we will continue to pursue ways to get more kids involved. * More information about the states of all of the shuttles, not just Columbia. I don't want to appear flip, but this one's easy! I recognize that Columbia's being in storage for a little while has made the status reports a bit boring, but that will change soon. There is a link in the paragraph below that takes you to the page from which I extract the information on Columbia. To duplicate that information on all of the orbiters would make this Updates letter even longer than it already is and would take from what I consider STO's people-oriented emphasis. I can't say why we chose Columbia a long time ago, though it's a personal favorite for me, but since the information on the other shuttles is easily accessible, I'm going to let the teacher in me encourage you visit the site and research on your own! * Sometimes they can be too long and off-putting. If you made them shorter and more frequent so we get the same amount of information it wont be so off putting. * a bit long... perhaps links to web pages could replace some text, but otherwise fine. I really appreciate this type of input, and I must admit that the length of the Updates is often off-putting to me too! After all, I've got to get all the information put together, and I try to publish once per week. The growth of the information, however, has been in response to requests from our constituents. If you find the Updates too long and unwieldy in e-mail format, I might suggest that you view it online where links can help you to select the specific sections that interest you, skipping those you prefer not to view. They are stored at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/updates [Editor's note: Brian is a flight controller for the International Space Station. His job is to make sure that the Station flies the way it is designed to.] SO, YOU WANT TO BE A FLIGHT CONTROLLER . . . http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/team/mcdonald.html March 15, l999 JSC is one of only two places in the world where manned space flight programs exist (the only other place is in Russia, on the other side of the world). It is ironic that, only a decade ago, the United States and the (now defunct) Soviet Union were bitter enemies in the midst of the Cold War. Now, however, these two Superpowers are, if not best of friends, the primary partners in the greatest scientific adventure that human civilization has ever seen - the International Space Station. All of the flight controllers that work on the International Space Station have the privilege of working on a truly international project. The ISS has been billed as the largest undertaking in history, and it really is an immense project. There are sixteen different nations, belonging to six different governmental space organizations, working on making this dream a reality. The organizations are: * National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) * Russian Space Agency (RSA) * Canadian Space Agency (CSA) * National Aeronautics and Space Defense Administration (NASDA) * European Space Agency (ESA) * Italian Space Agency (ISA) Currently, the NASA and RSA are the primary players in the assembly of the ISS. These two organizations are providing the majority of the modules and functionality of the ISS. The CSA is providing the ISS with a robotic arm for maneuvering objects and assisting in future assembly space walks. The NASDA, ESA, and ISA are all providing modules for future science experiments. To further give you an idea about the complexity of the ISS, there are currently twelve flight controllers that are all monitoring their respective systems. By the time the assembly is complete, there will be a full-time team of sixteen controllers, working around the clock. I'll tell you more about the different areas of responsibility, and the people who perform them, in another journal. A little bit about my job... I have the good fortune to work in the Motion Control Systems group (or MCS for short). We are the controllers responsible for the Guidance, Navigation, Attitude Control, and Propulsion (GNC&P) of the new ISS. Working in the MCS Group, I have the chance to work especially close with our Russian counterparts. You see, the GNC&P system is highly integrated between the US and Russian components. The level of integration requires us to know not only the US components but also the Russian ones. I call the ISS "new" because although NASA has been planning a space station for years, the first piece of the ISS was launched just last year - on November 20, 1998. For more on the history and on the future of this world-class orbital facility, check out a brief summary of the assembly activities in my next journal. Training To be a flight controller, I had to do quite a bit of training. A flight controller must be able to understand each piece of his or her system, both hardware and software, how it operates and how it fails. You also need to be able to recognize it while under stress, because one failure can cause another to occur. A good flight controller must be able to listen to three or four conversations and understand what is being said and happening in each of them, all while troubleshooting your own problems. It can be quite demanding, but this scenario is why we train like we do. Our training begins with a lot of reading. We read about how each piece of hardware works and about how the software should work. Then, after reading about the individual pieces, we begin to put them together to get an idea of how the system works as a whole. Along the way, we are tested on what we are learning by the system experts and the more senior controllers to make sure that we are learning things correctly and putting emphasis on the things that are really important. As we are studying and being tested, we also train using simulations. These simulations are sort of like big video games - although not exactly like the flight simulator games that are so popular. Our training sims involve an entire team of flight controllers, and the scenarios are planned by the training personnel so that as many people as possible get involved in the action. 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. Columbia is jacked and leveled in VAB high bay 2 undergoing routine system observation during a temporary storage period. Columbia will remain in the VAB until mid-April, when Shuttle Discovery rolls out of OPF bay 1. Columbia will then be transferred to OPF (Orbiter Processing Facility) bay 1 to complete STS-93's orbiter pre-launch preparations. Don't miss our peek inside the VAB on April 22 - see the schedule above! SUBSCRIBING & UNSUBSCRIBING: HOW TO DO IT! If this is your first message from the updates-sto list, welcome! To catch up on back issues, please visit the following Internet URL: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/updates To subscribe to the updates-sto mailing list (where this message came from), send a message to: listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov In the message body, write these words: subscribe updates-sto CONVERSELY... To remove your name from the updates-sto mailing list, send a message to: listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov In the message body, write these words: unsubscribe updates-sto If you have Web access, please visit our "continuous construction" site at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space |
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