Jul 29 1985
From The Space Library
NASA officials said they might alter Space Shuttle launch countdown procedures to avoid the type of last-second problem that forced postponement of mission 51-F earlier in July [see Space Transportation System, Launch Schedules, July 12], the NY Times reported.
Jesse Moore, NASA associate administrator, said in an interview that "We want to minimize the chances of a needless shutdown. There may be a way to soften up some of our criteria. "Before you take off on an airplane the pilot normally tries all his flaps and hydraulics," Moore said. "We don't have a chance to do that on the launch pad right now, and we want to perform those kinds of checks." Moore indicated new procedures being considered for the countdown included increasing the amount of time allowed for the Space Shuttle's computers to verify the correct functioning of the engine valves and broadening the criteria under which they were meant to operate. Moore added that criteria for safety would not change. The new procedures would add "no risk" to crew members, he said.
The consideration of new procedures likely reflected growing confidence in the Space Shuttle as well as concern about foreign competition for launches. NASA officials said Space Shuttle launches must proceed smoothly and regularly if the program is to be a commercial success and that the current schedule called for one launch a month, eventually going to one every two weeks. (NYT, July 29/85, A8)
NASA launched from KSC at 5:00 p.m. EDT today Space Shuttle mission 51-F with the orbiter Challenger carrying Spacelab-2. The flight was the eighth for Challenger and the 19th Space Shuttle mission. The flight commander was Col. Charles Gordon Fullerton, who served as pilot on the third Space Shuttle mission. Air Force Col. Roy Bridges, Jr. was pilot; mission specialists were Dr. Anthony England, a geophysicist; Dr. F. Story Musgrave, a physician; and Dr. Karl Henize, an astronomer who at the age of 58 was the oldest American to travel in space. Payload specialists were Dr. Loren Acton, a solar physicist at the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, and Dr. John David Bartoe, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory.
Approximately 5 minutes and 45 seconds after launch onboard computers shut down Challenger's center engine (SSME 1) due to failure of the orbiter's two high-pressure, fuel turbo-pump discharge temperature sensors. Challenger was 70 miles above earth at the time, about 50 miles below the orbit considered safe for a manned spacecraft.
The two remaining main engines ran smoothly and burned about a minute and 10 seconds longer than originally planned, putting the Space Shuttle into a lower-than-scheduled orbit.
The crew then used two auxiliary engines to raise the orbit in steps from an initial 122 miles to 194 miles at 10:30 p.m. the night of launch. The crew also dumped as much as 4,400 lb. of fuel to achieve the higher orbit.
In explaining the problem with SSME 1, NASA associate administrator Jesse Moore said the onboard sensors first indicated that the center engine might be overheating four minutes after liftoff, the Washington Post reported. "Computers then ordered the center engine fuel pump to bypass one valve and use another to feed fuel into the combustion chamber," he said. Two minutes later computers again sensed that the fuel pump was overheating and automatically shut down the center engine. The mission control center in Houston also received indications of dangerously high temperature readings on a second engine and instructed the crew to disconnect a backup sensor to prevent the second engine from shutting down before the spacecraft reached orbit.
The crew encountered the next problem when attempting to operate a $60 million telescope-pointing device. The instrument pointing subsystem (IPS) and its four solar telescopes were one of 13 experiments carried on the European-built Spacelab-2. Mission specialist Henize told mission control that the pointing attempts were "rather dismal," the NY Times reported.
Lee Briscoe, flight director, elaborated to reporters. "It appears that we are able to find the sun, find the stars, get into what we call a rough track mode," he said. "But we never appear to get into a fine track and actually finish the total tracking." Since the problem appeared to be with the computer programming that drove the unit, NASA radioed up a new version of the programming. However, it initially failed to correct the problem, and NASA told the crew to try harder. Eventually the IPS operated successfully after the crew inserted a series of software patches developed at Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA extended the mission duration by one day to allow additional collection of engineering and scientific data.
The Spacelab-2 aboard Challenger was the second of its two verification test flights and consisted of an igloo attached to a lead pallet, the IPS mounted on it and a two pallet train behind, with an experiment special support structure. Experiments conducted during the Spacelab-2 mission were in the fields of life sciences, plasma physics, infrared astronomy, high-energy physics, solar physics, atmospheric physics, and technology. Experiments were located on the IPS, the three pallets, the special support structure, the orbiter mid-deck, and one on the ground (NASA FOR M-989- 51-F [postflight] Sept 27/85, [prelaunch] July 9/85; NASA MOR M-977-51-F-03 [prelaunch] July 1/85; W Post, July 30/85, Al, July 31/85, A3; NYT, July 31/85, B4)
U.S., Indian, and Canadian officials were estimating the cost of raising portions of the wreckage of the Air-India Boeing 747 that crashed June 23 into the Atlantic off Ireland, Aviation Week reported. Lack of significant data on either the cockpit voice recorder or the flight data recorder, recovered July 10 and July 11, respectively, by a remotely controlled submersible vehicle, stalled the investigation into the cause of the crash until more information became available. Raising portions of the wreckage seemed the only way to accomplish this.
After a British ship initially surveyed the sea bed where the wreckage lay, the Canadian ship John Cabot completed a second sonar survey of that portion of the ocean floor. Officials later said wreckage of the aircraft could be identified only as "lumps." Officials said they had not determined the cost of raising the wreckage or a significant part of it, but knew it to be high. Although responsibility for the accident investigation legally belonged to India, the U.S. and Canada-both parties to the investigation-might contribute funds to the salvage operation. (Av Wk, July 15/85, 28; July 29/85, 29)
NASA announced today the launch by Atlas/Centaur 64 from KSC of the INTELSAT V-A (F-11), second in a series of improved International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) commercial communications satellites launched by that vehicle. INTELSAT V-A had a capacity of 13,500 voice circuits compared with INTELSAT V that had 12,000; INTELSAT IV-A, 6,000; and INTELSAT IV, 4,000. All satellites had two TV channels.
Figures collected as a result of the INTELSAT-sponsored global telecommunications traffic conference indicated that an INTELSAT IV-A satellite would have insufficient capacity by the early 1980s to cope with the traffic and load on the Atlantic Ocean primary satellite and on the Indian Ocean satellite. Although one solution could have been to orbit another INTELSAT IV-A Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean satellite, subsequent planning proceeded toward the development of a high-capacity INTELSAT V satellite. After an international bidding process, the INTELSAT Board of Governors at its September 1976 meeting awarded a contract for development and manufacture of seven INTELSAT V satellites to Ford Aerospace and Communication Corp. as prime contractor and an international team of manufacturers as subcontractors.
Since that time, the board decided to order two additional INTELSAT V satellites and to order six higher-capacity INTELSAT V-A spacecraft for launch in 1985 and beyond.
Members of the international manufacturing team included Aerospatiale (France), GEC-Marconi (United Kingdom), Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (Federal Republic of Germany), Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Japan), Selenia (Italy), and Thomson-CSF (France). (NASA MOR M-491-203-85-09 [prelaunch] May 27/85, [postlaunch] July 17/85)
Peoples Republic of China President Li Xiannian today made a three-hour visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the JPL Universe reported. JPL Director Dr. Lew Allen welcomed him, then said, "We are aware of the ongoing discussions between our governments regarding future space cooperation . . . We look forward to cooperative scientific investigations." Xiannian then viewed JPL's newly revised multi-media presentation, "Welcome to Outer Space," which had been translated into Chinese. After the show, Allen presented the president with a color photograph of Saturn and its moons; Dr. Taylor Wang-the first Chinese-American in space-gave him a photographic collage showing Wang in space during his May Space Shuttle flight and his drop dynamics module equipment.
Xiannian completed his visit with a tour of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility where he heard about the Galileo mission and saw a model of the spacecraft as well as actual pieces of its hardware. (JPL Universe, July 85, 1)
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