Jan 10 1994
From The Space Library
The crew for the STS-66 mission aboard Atlantis in the fall of 1994 was selected. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Donald R. McMonagle was to command the mission, called ATLAS-03. This third Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS) mission would continue Spacelab studies of solar energy effects on the Earth's climate and environment. USAF Major Curtis L. Brown, Jr., was named pilot; Scott E. Parazynski, M.D., Joseph R. Tanner, and ESA astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, mission specialists; and Ellen Ochoa, Ph.D., payload commander. Tasks included the CRISTA-SPAS Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometer Telescope for Atmosphere on the Shuttle Pallet Satellite, jointly with Germany. (NASA Release 94-4; Def Daily, Jan 12/94)
The crew for the STS-67 mission aboard Columbia for late 1994 was announced. Stephen S. Oswald was to command the Astro-2 astronomy mission to study the far ultraviolet (UV) spectra of faint astronomical objects and polarization of UV light from hot stars and galaxies. USAF Major William G. Gregory was named pilot, Navy Lieutenant Commander Wendy B. Lawrence mission specialist, Ronald A. Parise and Samuel T. Durrance payload specialists, Tamara E. Jernigan payload commander, and [[John M. Grunsfeld] mission specialist.
A flight plan change seven months before the Mars Observer launch may have caused the craft's failure. Its propellant tanks were pressurized not five days after launch but eleven months into the flight as it reached Mars, there-by apparently causing a catastrophic rupture in a fuel line that spun the craft out of control. Pressuration, needed to fire the braking rockets to put the craft into orbit around Mars, involves opening previously closed valves and releasing high-pressure helium to squeeze the hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer from separate tanks to mix and ignite. Minute amounts of condensed oxidizer possibly reached the hydrazine fuel, ignited, and ruptured the pipes, which released propellant into space and caused the uncontrolled spin. Peter G. Wilhelm, director of the Naval Center for Space Technology, a panel member who focused on the propulsion system, said that the team debated the change extensively, and JPL project manager Glenn E. Cunningham stated that the team considered and rejected an option to change valves as too costly and slow, and as a procedure that might have meant missing the 1992 launch window, thus requiring a two-year launch delay. (W Post, Jan 10/94)
Three unmanned supply craft were scheduled to visit Mir during this mission. A U.S.-Russian agreement signed in December worth $400 million to Russia over the next four years called for up to 10 U.S. Shuttle flights to Mir. (AP, Jan 8/94; UPI, Jan 8/94; Reuters, Jan 8/94)
Martin Marietta Corporation announced it would not claim a $21.3 million on-orbit performance fee and would return $17 million already received because of the failure of the Mars Observer craft. The total cost of the craft and its instrument cargo was $1 billion. Referring to the presumed explosion caused by a change in the flight plan with an 11-month delay in pressurizing a system, discussed in the four-volume report but omitted in news media interviews, Dr. Timothy Coffey, director of research at the Naval Research Laboratory and leader of the panel investigating the failure, said that "had JPL been more closely involved with Martin Marietta in the development of the spacecraft, it is conceivable this issue would have been identified earlier." (NY Times, Jan 11/94; W Post, Jan 11/94)
Dr. Timothy Coffey, director of research at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, and chairman of the independent investigative board studying the Mars Observer failure, delivered the report on the Mars mission to NASA. The spacecraft, the first U.S. mission to study Mars since the Viking missions 18 years ago, fell silent three days before entering orbit around Mars. Despite lack of any communication with the craft, the board found that the probable cause of the loss of communication was a rupture of the fuel (monomethyl hydrazine-MMH) pressurization side of the spacecraft's propulsion system. This would have caused an unsymmetrical pressurized leak of helium gas and liquid MMH, resulting in a net spin rate, which in turn would have caused the craft to enter a contingency mode. Tests conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Pasadena, California, yielded several possible failures. The board discussed a number of other concerns of a procedural nature. (NASA Release 94-1; USA Today, Jan 6/94; NY Times, Jan 6/94; B Sun, Jan 6/94; WSJ, Jan 6/94; W Post, Jan 6/94; LA Times, Jan 6/94; W Times, Jan 6/94)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
