Apr 12 1985
From The Space Library
NASA launched today at 8:59 a.m. from KSC the Space Shuttle Discovery mission 51-D, the 16th launch in the Space Shuttle program and the fourth flight of Discovery, the NY Times and Washington Post reported. Discovery carried a crew of seven, including Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for the NASA budget.
The launch followed a last minute repair for a salt water leak on the McDonnell Douglas Corp. experiment, the continuous flow electrophoresis system to produce an unidentified hormone that couldn't be manufactured on earth. Also, launch came 55 minutes later than scheduled and 55 seconds short of postponement because of clouds between 14,000 and 30,000 feet above the launch pad. Astronaut John W. Young, flying a training plane through the clouds, encountered rain. KSC officials then delayed launch because they did not want to risk getting the spaceship wet, which might cause erosion of critical heat-shielding material. When skies lightened and dried at 8:50, NASA resumed the countdown with no further interruption.
After launch, Discovery reached an elliptical orbit ranging in altitude from 185 to 286 miles, one of the higher courses achieved by the spacecraft.
Discovery's crew besides Sen. Garn were Air Force Col. Karol Bobko, making his second Space Shuttle flight, commander; Navy Comdr. Donald Williams, pilot; Dr. M. Rhea Seddon, Jeffrey Hoffman, and Navy Capt. David Griggs, mission specialists; and McDonnell Douglas Corp. engineer Charles Walker, payload specialist.
The astronauts deployed during early evening of launch day the Canadian ANIK C-1 satellite, which then moved to a higher equatorial orbit. They would deploy on April 13 the Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Leasat 3, which the Department of Defense would lease and the Navy operate as part of a military communications network. The remainder of the mission would be devoted to medical experiments and a test of how mechanical toys behaved in space.
Dr. Seddon began the first of the mission's medical tests by taking echocardiograms of three of the crew members. There were no reports on Sen. Gam's medical tests. In an effort to determine the causes and effects of space motion sickness, the Senator wore a waist belt with two stethoscopic microphones to record sounds his stomach and intestines made during digestion. His head and chest were wired to record electrical signals from his brain and heart; other instruments would measure the way his bones grew and shrunk in zero gravity. Also, he would perform exercises aimed at inducing nausea. (NY Times, Apr 13/85, Al; W Post, Apr 12/85, A6, Apr 13/85, Al)
NASA announced that the American Flight Echocardiograph (AFE), sponsored by the life sciences division of NASA's space science and application office (OSSA) and developed by the medical sciences division at Johnson Space Center, would fly on STS 51-D, the first of three planned flights of the equipment with follow-on activity determined by data results.
The objective of AFE was to obtain data on in-flight cardiovascular changes during space flight. Most changes seemed to result from the shift of body fluids out of the legs and into the chest and head in weightlessness. The brain apparently detected this shift and interpreted it as an increase in blood volume. Normal responses to this "overload" were an increase in urination and a decrease in thirst, reducing blood volume from an acceptable level.
Other effects of weightlessness included changes in heart size, an increase in the amount of blood pumped by the heart, and a decrease in the resistance to the flow of blood through the arteries. Most of these latter changes were normal responses to weightlessness; however, when combined with the reduced blood volume, they made effective functioning on return to earth difficult.
Determining the important cardiac and vascular changes during adaptation to weightlessness and during the readaptation to gravity after a flight would reveal how the cardiovascular system responded to unusual stresses. This would be valuable in the development of more effective countermeasures to the detrimental effects of spaceflight and in understanding the functioning of the circulation in general.
The AFE equipment used very high frequency sound waves (echocardiography) to obtain in vivo cardiodynamic structural and functional data. A probe held next to the skin sent high-frequency sound waves (ultrasound) through the skin and into the body. It then detected their reflections, or echos, from organ surfaces. The electronic circuitry of the echocardiograph calculated the distance traveled by the ultrasound pulse from the delay between the transmission of the pulse and the detection of its echo.
Dr. M. Rhea Seddon, a co-investigator on the project, had trained to use the AFE to image her own heart from several different angles. Every day in flight she would record her own echocardiogram and those of up to three other crew members as time and circumstances permitted. Dr. Seddon would obtain the first echocardiogram as soon as possible after orbital insertion and midway through and prior to sleep on the first flight day.
During the three flights on AFE, NASA planned to acquire data on about 10 crew members, along with pre- and postflight data. (NASA MOR E-420-51-D-14 [prelaunch] Apr 12/85)
NASA announced that the Phase Partitioning Experiment (PPE), sponsored by the microgravity science and applications division of the office of space science and applications (OSSA) and developed and managed by Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), would fly on STS 51-D in a locker used by payload specialist Sen. Jake Garn, who would take sole responsibility for the operation of the PPE.
Phase partitioning was a selective yet gentle and inexpensive technique for the separation of cells and proteins. It required establishing a two-phase system by adding various polymers to an aqueous solution containing the materials to be separated (two-phase systems were similar to the immiscible liquids oil and water). After establishment of such two-phase polymer systems, the biological materials they contained tended to partition into the different phases.
Theoretically, phase partitioning should separate cells with significantly higher resolution than was obtained in the laboratory. Performing the experiments in orbit should provide a long-term weightless environment that would help control the separation of the phases and obtain better fractionation of biological cells. Although the interaction of the cells and phases could be done in a slower and more controlled manner in weightlessness, there remained the problem of combining the phase emulsion back into the two separated phases without the effects of gravity. The PPE would examine this problem through two methods: natural coalescence and preferential wetting to localize the separate phases.
The PPE equipment was a small hand-held unit weighing 427 g (one lb.). MSFC researchers fabricated the unit from plastic materials with transparent sides so that there were 15 separate small chambers, each with its own stainless steel mixer ball, allowing for simultaneous study of a number of experimental variables. After shaking the unit to achieve an emulsification of the phases in the chambers, photographs over the next 45 minutes would record the progress of the separations. The PPE operator would note transient phenomena not recorded by the camera. Researchers hoped the procedure could be repeated three times during the flight. (NASA MOR E-420-51-D13 [prelaunch] Apr 12/85)
NASA announced that a protein crystal growth (PCG) experiment, sponsored by the microgravity science and application division of the office of space science and applications (OSSA), would be flown on STS 51-D in a middeck locker used for the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Corp.'s continuous flow electrophoresis system (CFES). CFES payload specialist Charles Walker would operate the PCG experiment.
Detailed knowledge of their composition and structure was extremely important to understanding the nature and chemistry of proteins and Douglas's ability to manufacture and/or modify them for medical uses. However, for most complex proteins, it was not possible to grow on earth crystals of sufficient size and quality to allow analyses by X-ray or neutron diffraction techniques. Researchers believed growth of such crystals would be possible in the weightlessness of orbital spaceflight where gravity-driven convection currents were minimized and where the crystals remained suspended during their growth cycle. The PCG experiment hardware would accomplish this.
After reaching orbit, Walker would manipulate the small PCG unit to mix about 30 pairs of solutions. Near the end of the flight, he would prepare the unit for reentry and stow it in the equipment locker. Upon return to earth, NASA would send the unit to MSFC for analyses by the principal investigator. Results of the analyses would determine the schedule for further flights. (NASA MOR E-420-51-D-15 [prelaunch] Apr 12/85)
National Space Transportation System manager Dr. Glynn Lunney, who was a member of the Space Task Group that inaugurated U.S. manned space flight, announced he would leave NASA in the near future, the Johnson Space Center Space News Roundup reported.
Lunney, whose career almost exactly spanned the period of U.S. efforts in space, began his government service in 1958 with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA's predecessor, at Lewis Research Center. He then moved to the Space Task Group and with it to Houston when it became the Manned Spacecraft Center. Later he became head of the mission logic and computer hardware section, chief of the flight dynamics branch, flight director for the Gemini program, and, in July 1968, one year before the first manned landing on the moon, chief of the flight director's office. He then served as special assistant to the manager and then manager of the Apollo spacecraft program.
With the advent of the Space Shuttle program, he became manager of the Space Shuttle payload integration and development program responsible for directing the planning and implementation for all payloads and payload carriers in that program.
Since 1981 he served as manager of the National Space Transportation Systems Program with responsibility for overall systems management and integration of all elements of the program.
Among the awards received by Lunney were the Lawrence Sperry Award, the Arthur S. Fleming Award, the Louis W. Hill Space Transportation Award, the Allan D. Emil Memorial Award, the W. Randolph Lovelace II Award, three NASA Group Achievement Awards, two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, an Outstanding Leadership Medal, Senior Executive Service designations, and an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Scranton. Lunney was a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (JSC Space News Roundup, Apr 12/85, 1)
Reiichi Takeuchi, chief of Japan's science and technology agency, said Japan had decided to take part in the U.S. space station beginning with the preliminary design stage, FBIS, KYODO in English reported. He said the Japanese would sign with NASA Administrator James Beggs a memorandum on the decision when Beggs visited Tokyo early in May. The agreement would cover two years of work, at which time, Takeuchi said, the two countries would probably sign a similar document for later stages of the project.
Takeuchi noted he expected the U.S. would ask Japan to design the laboratory room of the Space Station, scheduled for operation in 1992. He estimated the cost at 200 to 300 billion yen. Under the memorandum, the U.S. would provide Japan with technical information on how the Space Station would be used. (FBIS, KYODO in English, Apr 12/85)
NASA announced it honored at a KSC reception 200 NASA and NASA industrial Quality Circle employees for their volunteer efforts in improving quality, safety, and productivity. Jesse Moore, NASA associate administrator for space flight, read a message from George Burns, president of the International Association of Quality Circles, congratulating the employees on their outstanding performance.
NASA selected the honorees under an office of space flight program that recognized first-level supervisory and support personnel for their productivity efforts. The Manned Flight Awareness Panel, made up of NASA and industry personnel, managed the program. NASA had over 120 employee teams with over 1,000 employees voluntarily participating in Quality Circles. Through the program, NASA hoped to foster increased effectiveness through improved efficiency in the space and aeronautics research and development programs. (NASA Release 85-55)
Three quarters of a million gallons of water flooded Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg AFB during a March test to determine whether the system, intended to suppress sound waves from the Space Shuttle during a launch, would operate properly, the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) Newsreview reported. Sound waves, reflected off the launch mount and flame ducts, could seriously damage the orbiter and its payload.
To prevent such damage, nozzles on the mount would begin spraying water into the three pad exhaust ducts seven and a half seconds before the Space Shuttle's main engines ignited. By ignition time, the spray system would reach its full flow rate of 985,000 gallons per minute and maintain that rate for nearly 30 seconds before tapering off after the Space Shuttle left the pad.
Although Vandenberg officials had tested the spray system six times previously, the March test was the first time the nonflying prototype orbiter Enterprise, inert solid-fuel rocket boosters, and an external tank were in place on the mount during a test. Remotely controlled by the launch control center, the splash pattern of the gravity-fed water system resulted in no water splashing up into the main engines, where ice might form before ignition. The system sprayed water exactly where it would be needed at launch-down into the flame ducts and out over the concrete pad surface.
George O'Gorman, site manager for complex-6, said most of the complex's construction work was complete, although some modifications were scheduled before the orbiter Discovery would arrive in September for launch in January 1986.
The Air Force expected to make about four Space Shuttle launches a year by the late 1980s from Vandenberg AFB. The facility could handle as many as ten launches a year. (AFCS Newsreview, Apr 12/85, 3)
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