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Fwd: Professor relates shuttle disasters to management lessons

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 29, 2015 at 10:14:17 AM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Professor relates shuttle disasters to management lessons

 

http://www.dailytitan.com/2015/10/professor-relates-shuttle-disasters-to-management-lessons/

 

Cal State Fullerton Daily Titan — 6:02 am ET (1002 GMT)

 

 

 

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Professor relates shuttle disasters to management lessons

By

Graham McTague

 

– Posted on October 27, 2015
Posted in: Campus News, News

Mark Maier, Chapman University professor, demonstrated how the space shuttle failures took place. Tuesday's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute seminar is a part of their "Eclectic" lecture series.
(Renzy Reyes / Daily Titan)

In an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) hosted seminar, Mark Maier, Ph.D., presented NASA's Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters through the lenses of organization and management leadership lessons, Tuesday.

Maier used the two shuttle disasters as examples of decision making and risk assessment.

Maier is the associate professor of leadership in the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University and is also director of the undergraduate Leadership Studies Program.

Maier introduced two prominent styles of leadership, "the power model" and "the service model," along with his proposed "alternative paradigm" to these existing methods.

"(The power model) is the prevailing model of leadership," Maier said.
This style of leadership is anchored on control from the boss and how a person can maximize their own personal gain without upsetting the leader, he said.

It was NASA's reliance on the power model that led to the disasters during the Challenger and Columbia launches, Maier said.

Maier agreed with a vocal member of the audience that most successful businesses use a combination of both the power and service leadership models.

"You have two tragic failures, separated 17 years apart," said Maier.

"Those who can't learn from the past are destined to repeat it."
He said that there is a way to prevent situations like the Challenger's from happening by embracing a newer approach to leadership.

Maier continued his demonstration by going over the complications that occurred during the takeoff of the Challenger spacecraft, explaining that there were roughly 829 critical items that needed to be in perfect condition before take-off.

Problems with a rubber sealant ring, known as the O-ring, were neglected by NASA employees, Maier said. This led to the shuttle's explosion.

Maier explained how NASA had a hierarchy at the time that was designed to catch problems early in order to avoid complications with the project.

After discovering problems with the O-rings, Maier said workers on the shuttle brought them to NASA's attention. The contributing factors to these problems were later withdrawn from the files which were submitted to higher level staff.

"Bad news is being kept from them," Maier said. "One of the reasons for that is that NASA has already invested $100 million in building a second launch facility."

Another reason the information was withheld from NASA executives was because of the management hierarchy, Maier said. Staff members were too scared to bring the O-ring issue to the attention of their bosses and that it is a consequence of following the power model, he said.

"There's actually a lot of fear … that characterizes (the power) model," Maier said. "Fear on the part of people who hold power to not have their power challenged."

The power model conflicts with Maier's proposed model.

"That's very different from this alternative view, which is the service model of leadership," Maier said. "It's anchored in service. You're not serving the boss but all of you together are serving a higher purpose."

Maier said that in the service model approach, the focus is generated towards the long term success of the organization and what it represents, an approach that he favored over the power model.

"We're so enamored with this idea that it's the results that count first," Maier said. "Goals and results obviously matter, but they should be driven by your vision and your purpose."

 

Copyright Daily Titan. All Rights Reserved.

 

Fwd: Astronauts Complete Their First Spacewalk

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 29, 2015 at 10:19:53 AM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Astronauts Complete Their First Spacewalk

 

 

NASA Astronauts Complete Their First Spacewalk

October 28, 2015 at 3:29 pm by Mark Garcia.

 

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren will conduct a second spacewalk on Nov. 6. Credit: NASA TV

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren ended their spacewalk at 3:19 p.m. EDT with the repressurization of the U.S. Quest airlock, having completed most of the major tasks planned for their excursion outside the International Space Station.

Kelly and Lindgren applied a thermal cover on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer; applied grease to a number of components in one of the latching ends of the Canadarm2 robotic arm; and began work to rig power and data system cables for the future installation of a docking port to the station that will be used for the arrival of the Boeing Starliner CST-100 and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Greasing numerous parts of the robotic arm took somewhat longer than anticipated, and flight controllers chose to forego the lubrication of one component. However, engineers are satisfied the work that was completed sufficiently enhances the performance of the latching end effector. A lower priority task to reinstall a valve on the station will be assigned to crew members during a future spacewalk.

The 7-hour and 16-minute spacewalk was a first for both astronauts. Crew members have now spent a total of 1,184 hours and 16 minutes conducting space station assembly and maintenance during 189 spacewalks.

Kelly and Lindgren will venture outside the International Space Station again on Friday, Nov. 6. The two spacewalks were scheduled around milestones in space. Tomorrow, Kelly becomes the U.S. astronaut who has lived in space the longest during a single U.S. spaceflight, and Monday the crew celebrates the 15th year of a continuous human presence in space aboard the station.

During the second spacewalk, the astronauts will restore a truss cooling system to its original configuration following a 2012 spacewalk in which another team of astronauts attempted to isolate a leak of ammonia coolant. They also will top off ammonia on the station's truss reservoirs. NASA Television coverage will begin at 5:45 a.m. EST ahead of the spacewalk's planned start time of 7:10 a.m.

 

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By William Harwood CBS News October 28, 2015, 4:34 PM

Space station astronauts carry out extended spacewalk

Space station commander Scott Kelly floats out of the Quest airlock module to begin his first spacewalk, a seven-hour 16-minute excursion to perform maintenance and to install cables needed for a new docking mechanism.  Sergey Volkov via Twitter

 

Space station commander Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren carried out a tedious seven-hour 16-minute spacewalk Wednesday, installing cables needed for a new docking mechanism, mounting insulation panels on a physics experiment to improve cooling and lubricating the latching mechanism of the station's robot arm.

But Kelly needed more time than budgeted applying grease to hard-to-see internal components and as such was not able to meet up with Lindgren late in the spacewalk to complete one of the cable installations.

After already agreeing to extend the spacewalk by a half hour or so, mission controllers told Kelly to skip a few final lubrication steps and Lindgren was told to forego re-installation of a vent valve on the Tranquility module, a low-priority task that was deferred to a future spacewalk.

But the major objectives of U.S. EVA-32 were mostly accomplished and after collecting tools and equipment, the astronauts made their way back to the Quest airlock and called it a day. Repressurization began at 3:19 p.m. EDT (GMT-4).

"On behalf of the entire team here, we want to thank you guys for all the hard work that you put into this heck of task," called astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson in mission control. "You guys did a great job."

"Hey, thanks, Trace, and thanks to the whole team," Kelly replied. "We do understand how much work it takes to put this together and how much you guys are looking out for our safety and well being, and we really appreciate it."

Astronaut Scott Kelly's helmet camera looks into the latching end effector of the space station's robot arm as North Africa and the Gulf of Sidra pass by more than 250 miles below. Work to lubricate internal drive screws and bearings in the arm's latching mechanism took longer than expected.

NASA

Kelly, nearly 215 days into a nearly yearlong mission, and Lindgren plan to venture back outside a week from Friday to reconfigure the ammonia cooling system on one of the station's sets of solar arrays.

Wednesday's spacewalk, the first for both Kelly and Lindgren, began at 8:03 a.m. when the astronauts switched their spacesuits to battery power. After exiting the airlock and assembling tools and equipment, the two men went their separate ways.

Kelly first removed insulation from an electrical distribution box known as a main bus switching unit that is mounted on an external storage platform. The MBSU suffered a fault of some sort earlier and with the insulation out of the way, it can be robotically removed by a future crew and eventually brought inside for troubleshooting and repairs.

Play Video

Scott Kelly does a space flip for CBS News

 

Lindgren, meanwhile, moved to the upper right side of the station's main power truss and installed insulation on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a high-profile particle physics experiment that has experienced cooling problems in recent months. The insulation should help improve temperature control.

After stowing the insulation bags and associated tools, Lindgren began work to lay cables that will deliver power and data to a new docking mechanism that will be installed on the forward Harmony module's upper port in 2017.

The new International Docking Adapters, one atop Harmony and one on its front end of the module, will be used by new U.S. crew ferry craft being built by Boeing and SpaceX starting in late 2017 or 2018.

At one point, Caldwell Dyson, a veteran spacewalker, asked Lindgren to read the label on a cable connector. He did so, although he said the label was hard to read.

"It's pretty faded, so that's my best guess," he radioed.

"To be expected," Caldwell Dyson replied. "You know when that was placed there?"

"No, when?"

"You were probably still in diapers," she joked.

"I'm STILL in diapers!" Lindgren replied, drawing laughter in mission control.

While Lindgren focused on routing the long cables, Kelly worked on lubricating internal drive screws and bearings in a so-called "latching end effector," or LEE, on one end of the station's robot arm.

The arm has a latching mechanism on each end so it can move inch-worm fashion from work site to work site and over the years, telemetry has indicated a slow increase in friction and motor currents. One LEE was lubricated during a spacewalk earlier this year and Kelly took on its counterpart Wednesday.

Using a grease gun and a long custom applicator, the station commander had to do most of the lubrication work "in the blind" without being able to see the drive screws in question. He frequently had to stop and clean up the grease gun and sought guidance from mission control to make sure the applicator was properly aligned.

He completed most of the planned work, but with the spacewalk running longer than expected, flight controllers opted to skip a few final steps, telling the astronauts to pack up their tools and equipment and head back to the airlock.

This was the 189th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the fifth so far this year and the first for Kelly and Lindgren.

With today's EVA, 122 astronauts and cosmonauts representing nine nations have logged 1,184 hours and 16 minutes of EVA time working outside the space station, or 49.3 days.

 

© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.                      

 

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Astronaut completes spacewalk right before setting US record

By MARCIA DUNN 

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's yearlong spaceman, Scott Kelly, chalked up his first spacewalk Wednesday just hours before he sets a record for the nation's longest trip off the planet.

Kelly found himself repeatedly wiping away excess grease while lubricating the snares on the tip of the International Space Station's big robot arm. The job was sloppier and more time-consuming than expected, and couldn't be completed as time ran out.

"It's so messy," Kelly said.

Kelly and fellow spacewalker Kjell Lindgren spent seven hours outside tackling a long overdue list of maintenance chores. In addition to the routine lube work, they routed cable for a future docking port, removed insulation from an electronic switching unit, and covered an antimatter and dark matter detector. A few tasks had to be left undone.

They'll venture back out Nov. 6 for round two.

Thursday, meanwhile, promises to be another banner day for Kelly.

View gallery

 

In this frame grab from NASA Television, astronaut Kjell Lindgren performs maintenance outside the I …

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, just after midnight Eastern time, Kelly will break the American record for NASA's longest single space shot. That 215-day record — more than seven months — was set in 2007.

Kelly has been living at the orbiting lab since March. He is to remain there until March 2016. Russian Mikhail Kornienko is also part of the one-year experiment in preparation for eventual Mars expeditions, although it will fall shy of the 14-month world record held by a fellow cosmonaut, Valery Polyakov, who lived on Russia's old Mir space station in 1994 and 1995.

Former space station resident Michael Lopez-Alegria has been counting down the days until Kelly surpasses his record of 215 days, eight hours and 22 minutes. "Proud to pass the baton," he said in a tweet.

President Barack Obama already has relayed congratulations. In a phone call last week, Obama told Kelly his feat is "nothing to sneeze at." Kelly assured the president that even though he feels like he's been in orbit a long time and still has a long way to go, "it shouldn't be a problem getting to the end with enough energy and enthusiasm to complete the job."

"Records are made to be broken," Kelly noted.

View gallery

 

In this frame grab from NASA Television, astronaut Kjell Lindgren performs maintenance outside the I …

Earlier this month, Kelly broke the U.S. record for the most accumulative time in space: 383 days and counting over four missions. It will total 522 days by the time he returns to Earth, well short of the Russian record.

Before Wednesday's spacewalk, Kelly's identical twin, Mark, a retired astronaut, urged his brother to be careful but still have fun.

"Don't forget to take a good selfie!" Mark said via Twitter. He commanded the mission that delivered the antimatter-hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in 2011; it was the next-to-last shuttle flight. Scientists wanted the device covered with a thermal blanket to keep it cooler and prolong its life.

As Lindgren gathered up cables 250 miles above Earth, Mission Control asked him to call out the serial number on one and wondered whether he knew when it was put there. He didn't.

"You were probably still in diapers," Mission Control informed the first-time space flier. "I'm still in diapers," he replied with a chuckle, getting a big laugh in Houston.

Yes, astronauts wear diapers during lengthy spacewalks.

 

NASA's Scott Kelly breaks US record for most days in space

October 16, 2015 3:16 PM

 

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View photo

This July 12, 2015 photo made available by NASA, astronaut Scott Kelly poses for a selfie photo in the "Cupola" of the International Space Station. On Friday, Oct. 16, 2015, Kelly broke the U.S. record for the most time spent in space Friday _ 382 days. (Scott Kelly/NASA via AP)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Waking up hundreds of miles above the Himalayas, astronaut Scott Kelly broke the U.S. record Friday for the most time spent in space with 383 days.

Kelly is more than halfway through a yearlong mission at the International Space Station and will eventually set a record for the longest single U.S. space mission.

Kelly tweeted back to Earth that he hopes that his eventual 500 plus days in orbit will be exceeded by someone visiting Mars. He tweeted that his day began with a strikingly beautiful view of the Himalayas and vowed to visit them.

Kelly and his ex-astronaut twin Mark, on the ground, are part of an experiment on the long-term effects of space.

Russia's Gennady Padalka holds the record with 879 days in space.

 

Copyright © 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

 

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Copyright © 2015 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. 

 

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Copyright © 2015 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. 

 

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
October 28th, 2015 

First-Time Spacewalkers Complete EVA-32, Ahead of 'Extremely Busy' Winter of Resupply Operations

By Ben Evans

 

With red stripes on the legs of his suit for identification, Scott Kelly emerges from the Quest airlock to begin the United States' fourth EVA of 2015. Photo Credit: NASA

For the fourth time this year, a pair of astronauts ventured outside the Quest airlock of the International Space Station (ISS) earlier today (Wednesday, 28 October) and completed a number of activities in readiness for the future expansion of the orbital outpost to receive its first Commercial Crew visitors from 2017 onwards. Expedition 45 astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, both embarking on their first career EVAs, spent seven hours and 16 minutes successfully installing thermal covers on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), tying down Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) on one of four Main Bus Switching Units (MBSUs), laying cables in readiness for Commercial Crew operations and lubricating the second Latching End Effector (LEE) on the space station's 57.7-foot-long (17.6-meter) Canadarm2 robotic arm. However, the astronauts' work took slightly longer than anticipated and another task—to install a Non-Propulsive Vent (NPV) back onto the Tranquility node—was deferred to a later date. Known as an "ISS Upgrades EVA", today's work comes on the heels of three months of detailed planning and was made possible when a "window" opened in the October-November timeframe, ahead of what ISS Operations Integration Manager Kenny Todd expects to be an "extremely busy" winter of Visiting Vehicle traffic.

As is customary in the ISS era, much of the training for today's EVA-32—the 32nd U.S. "Stage" EVA, executed out of the Quest airlock, in U.S.-built Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) suits and without a Space Shuttle being present—has been completed with the astronauts already in orbit. Kelly, who is now at the 60-percent-complete stage of his one-year mission with Russia's Mikhail Kornienko, was launched in late March, whilst Lindgren rocketed into orbit on 22 July, requiring them to utilize their pre-flight EVA Skills training, manuals, checklists and presentations and in-suit exercises in Quest. Earlier this month, Lindgren described his EMU as a "marvelous miniature spaceship" to his 44,500 Twitter followers and thanked the engineers, instructors and divers who had trained him to use the suit. For his own part, Kelly posted a suited self-portrait in the airlock and told his 587,000-strong Twitter audience that he was "Getting my game face on for a spacewalk".

Early this morning, assisted by fellow Expedition 45 crewmates Kimiya Yui of Japan—who served in the Intravehicular (IV) role, choreographing EVA-32 from inside the station—and Russia's Sergei Volkov, the two spacewalkers undertook 60 minutes of "pre-breathing" on masks, during which time the inner "equipment lock" of Quest was depressed from its ambient 14.7 psi to 10.2 psi. Upon completion of this well-trodden pre-EVA protocol, Kelly and Lindgren donned and purged their EMUs and the airlock's atmosphere was repressurized back up to 14.7 psi.

Today's spacewalkers were Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly (left) and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren. Image Credit: NASA

This allowed the men to enter a nominal pre-breathing regime, lasting 50 minutes, followed by a further 50 minutes of In-Suit Light Exercise (ISLE). The latter was first trialed during the third EVA of the STS-134 shuttle mission in May 2011—which, coincidentally, was commanded by Kelly's identical twin brother, Mark—and serves to rapidly remove nitrogen from the spacewalkers' bloodstreams, thereby avoiding a potentially fatal attack of the "bends" and skirting the need for the EVA crew to "camp out" overnight in Quest. At length, Yui and Volkov transferred the fully-suited astronauts and their equipment, including the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) units, affixed to the lower segment of their life-sustaining backpacks, from the equipment lock into the outer "crew lock". Hatches between the locks were closed at shortly before 7:20 a.m. EDT and depressurization began.

When it reached 5 psi, it briefly halted for pressure and leak checks, then resumed until the crew lock achieved a condition of near-vacuum. EVA-32 officially commenced at 8:03 a.m. EDT, when Kelly and Lindgren transferred their suits' life-support utilities from ISS power over to internal batteries. Venturing outside first, Kelly—designated "EV1", bearing red stripes on the legs of his suit for identification—became the 212th human being since Alexei Leonov and the 120th American citizen since Ed White to perform a spacewalk. Meanwhile, in order to negate the need to return to the airlock during the remainder of the EVA, Lindgren ("EV2", clad in a pure white suit) passed out bags of equipment and then joined Kelly to become the world's 213th and America's 121st spacewalker.

"After being cooped up in the @Space_Station for the past 215 days," tweeted Kelly's identical twin brother, Mark, "@StationCDRKelly got to go outside for a walk." The twins were selected together as Space Shuttle pilots with the 16th class of NASA astronauts, way back in May 1996. Both have now flown four space missions: Mark has served twice apiece as a shuttle pilot and commander, whilst Scott has piloted one shuttle mission, commanded another and went on twice helm the ISS as its long-duration skipper.

Both Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly were embarking on their first career spacewalks with U.S. EVA-32. Photo Credit: NASA/Twitter/Kimiya Yui

Following standard "buddy checks" of each other's suits and tools, the pair set about their initial tasks by 8:40 a.m., with Kelly taking the MLI bag along the airlock "spur" and translating along the starboard side of the Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) to reach the MBSU location on ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC)-2, at the junction of the S-1 and S-3 segments. Working quickly, he began tying down the MLI at the MBSU, in order to provide a clear movement path for the station's Mobile Base System (MBS), which offers a foundation for Canadarm2 to translate along the truss. Kelly was finished on this task shortly after 10 a.m. EST and, just a few minutes behind the timeline, he pressed ahead into the next of his scheduled tasks.

Meanwhile, Lindgren moved the Ballscrew Lubricating Tool (BLT)—previously used by Expedition 42's Terry Virts to grease one of Canadarm2's Latching End Effectors (LEE), during EVA-30 in February—and moved it over to External Stowage Platform (ESP)-2, to be employed by Kelly later in the spacewalk. ESP-2 resides on the port side of Quest and would be the location from which Kelly would conduct his intricate lubrication work. Next, Lindgren collected an Articulating Portable Foot Restraint (APFR) from ESP-2 and translated out to the 14,800-pound (6,700 kg) AMS, which is positioned on the Upper Inboard Payload Attach Site on the S-3 truss segment. He had reached the particle physics instrument by about 9:20 a.m., some 80 minutes into the EVA. Working quickly, Lindgren secured the APFR in place within minutes and set to work wire-tying a small "wedge" of MLI material between two of AMS' radiators, which then expanded, tent-like, to provide thermal protection. He then installed small and large MLI blankets over the AMS pumps, which have experienced some degradation in recent months, and was finished by 10:30 a.m., about 2.5 hours after leaving the Quest airlock.

Following his MBSU work, Kelly moved into perhaps the most complex stage of EVA-32: lubricating the Canadarm2 LEE. Since the 57.7-foot-long (17.6-meter) arm consists of two LEEs—allowing it to effectively "inchworm" its way along the football-field-sized truss structure—it was necessary for both "ends" to be thoroughly lubed, in order to resolve issues of "stickiness" and sluggish motion, which have created higher than expected electrical currents. To be fair, the Canadian-built arm has been aboard the ISS since April 2001. One LEE was successfully lubed by Terry Virts in February, with Kelly slated to tend to the LEE on the other end of the arm.

His work got underway shortly after 11 a.m. EST, about three hours into EVA-32, when he set up the APFR and was presented with the looming face of the LEE, whose extended latches and central ballscrew bore an uncanny similarity to the fearsome tripods in War of the Worlds. Since lubrication of the LEE was never intended to be done by spacewalkers, the BLT—which comprises a probe, wire ties and lots of tape—was employed by Virts in February and, today, by Kelly, to apply lubricant from a Grease Gun.

Kjell Lindgren works with the Orange and Purple-White data and power cables during the course of EVA-32. Photo Credit: NASA

After several "dry runs", he set to work applying lubricant shortly before 12:30 p.m., some 4.5 hours after departing the Quest airlock. Working "in the blind" at several stages, Kelly first attacked the LEE's central ballscrew, before moving onto the equalization brackets and latch deployments rollers for its four extended latches. His task was slow, methodical and incredibly fiddly and NASA later reported that "greasing numerous parts of the robotic arm took somewhat longer than anticipated", leading to the decision to forego the lubrication of one component, and Kelly's work was done by 1:30 p.m. EST.

Elsewhere, Lindgren had wrapped up his AMS activity and moved into retrieving a cable bag, containing power ("Purple-White") and data ("Orange") cables for future operations with Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA)-3—soon to be transferred from its current perch on the Tranquility node to the space-facing (or "zenith") side of the Harmony node—and one of two International Docking Adapters (IDAs). He initially "temp-stowed" the forward part of the cable onto a handrail on the Destiny laboratory, then routed the aft section towards the Unity node, with the orange cable first, then the purple-white cable. Lindgren's cable work was completed by 1:20 p.m. EDT.

By this point, almost 5.5 hours into EVA-32, it was evident that the spacewalk would run for longer than its planned 6.5 hours, and the astronauts were told to defer the NPV installation task until a later date. All primary activities had been successfully concluded and Kelly and Lindgren cleaned up their respective worksites and made their way back to the airlock. Repressurization was finalized at 3:19 p.m. EDT, with EVA-32 wrapped up after seven hours and 16 minutes. When placed into context, this EVA—the 189th spacewalk of the ISS era, since the initial excursion by STS-88 astronauts Jerry Ross and Jim Newman, way back in December 1998—has pushed the cumulative time spent by humans working outside this multi-national habitat in the heavens to 1,184 hours, which represents 49.3 days, or more than seven weeks working in near-total vacuum.

Next up for Kelly and Lindgren is EVA-33, currently planned for Friday, 6 November, which will see the spacewalkers also spend around 6.5 hours working outside the space station. As outlined in a previous AmericaSpace article, this second EVA will see the men exchange roles, with Lindgren as EV1 and Kelly as EV2. Its principal objective can trace its heritage back to November 2012, when Expedition 33 spacewalkers Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide attempted to isolate an ammonia leak in the cooling system of the P-6 element of the ITS. It was speculated at the time that the leak possibly arose following an Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) strike to its Photovoltaic Radiator (PVR) or perhaps age-induced cracking, but by mid-2012 the leak had increased to 5.2 pounds (2.4 kg) per year, which represented about 10 percent of P-6's original ammonia load. This, in turn, raised the alarming risk that the critical 2B power channel—which carries major electrical loads across the whole ISS—could have been forced to shut down before the end of 2012.

Williams and Hoshide's EVA isolated the 2B coolant loop and used the Trailing Thermal Control Radiator (TTCR) for subsequent cooling, allowing engineers to pinpoint the exact location of the ammonia leak. However, six months later, in May 2013, ammonia "snow" was seen emanating from the 2B power channel, which necessitated a contingency EVA by Expedition 35 spacewalkers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn. The pair were unable to locate the source of the leakage, but removed, replaced and tested a suspect Pump Flow Control Subassembly (PFCS), which was expected to yield additional clues for investigators in their search for a solution. More than two years later, Kelly and Lindgren's task on U.S. EVA-33 will be to restore the P-6 truss cooling system to the original state it was in prior to the Williams/Hoshide EVA.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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Rookie Spacewalkers Perform Critical Space Station Work

by Sarah Lewin, Staff Writer   |   October 28, 2015 03:33pm ET

 

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren makes his way towards the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the outside of the International Space Station near the beginning of his spacewalk with mission lead Scott Kelly on Oct. 28. Credit: NASA View full size image

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren successfully completed their first-ever spacewalks today (Oct. 28), completing a handful of tasks vital to the International Space Station's longterm endurance.

NASA's 32nd International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk officially started at 8:03 a.m. ET (1203 GMT) and lasted for 7 hours and 16 minutes as Kelly and Lindgren performed a handful of important maintenance tasks, including putting additional shielding over a science experiment, lubricating the station's robotic arm and rerouting cables to a future docking site for commercial spacecraft.

Kelly, who commanded the spacewalk and is on day 214 of his yearlong stay on the ISS, went out first, and Lindgren followed several minutes later. For their next spacewalk, on Nov. 6, Lindgren will take the lead. [One Year in Space: Epic Space Station Mission in Photos]

Veteran spacewalker Tracy Caldwell Dyson — who spent more than 188 cumulative days in space, and a total of more than 22 hours outside the space station over the course of three spacewalks — walked the pair step-by-step through their mission tasks from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston.

"You guys probably noticed that the sun came up, huh?" Caldwell Dyson said early on in the mission.

"Yep," Lindgren responded. "Beautiful."

"Well, don't forget those visors, if you haven't used them already — they'll come in handy when that big fireball is staring at you."

2 astronauts entered vastness of space for 1st time. Watch #spacewalk now: https://t.co/0Pr5m1bEAZ pic.twitter.com/NNlqEMxqhn

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 28, 2015

The duo's exit from the space station was delayed when Lindgren turned on the water to his suit a bit too soon, before the airlock had been fully decompressed. But, after careful observation to make sure there were no ill effects, the astronauts moved forward.

Once outside the space station, the astronauts split up to perform their initial tasks separately. Kelly removed insulation from a failed main bus switching unit, which controls the power sent from solar panels to the station, so it can be robotically removed later. Lindgren added a thermal wedge and a protective blanket to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the station's exterior, to shield the instrument from the sun and harsh space environment, and thus extend its life span.

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren opens the cover of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in order to photograph it before putting on a cooling wedge and protective blanket during his first spacewalk on Oct. 28.
Credit: NASA

View full size image

 

The AMS, an experiment to search for dark matter, has been aboard the space station since 2011, in which time it has recorded more than 60 billion cosmic rays passing through. It was launched on the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavour, which was commanded by Kelly's twin brother, Mark.

.@StationCDRKelly begins next #spacewalk task with the @CSA_ASC robotic arm... https://t.co/bJ7m9O2twE https://t.co/YehsCpN01V

— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 28, 2015

After removing and stowing the insulation, Kelly carefully made his way toward the station's main robotic arm, Canadarm2. NASA ground control moved the arm to within his reach so he could lubricate many of the joints at the end, which grabs ahold of cargo and visiting spacecraft. (NASA astronaut Terry Virts lubricated other joints in February.) Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui helped Kelly throughout the hours-long task by maneuvering the arm from inside the space station.

Lindgren, meanwhile, worked to reroute data and power cables to prepare for future commercial docking missions. When Dyson called an end to the spacewalk and the two prepared to head back inside, Kelly had nearly finished his laborious robotic arm task — greasing three out of the four target areas, which should decrease friction and make the arm easier to operate. The astronauts ran out of time to install a vent valve on the Tranquility module. (Spacewalk tasks are arranged from most to least vital; there will be a chance to install that valve on future spacewalks.)

The day-lit Earth stretches beneath astronaut Kjell Lindgren Oct. 28 as he makes his way over to reroute cables on the outside of the space station's Harmony module.
Credit: NASA

View full size image

Now, the duo has some time to relax before preparing for their second spacewalk next week — a complicated one on which they'll be reconfiguring a station cooling system and topping off its supply of ammonia.

Nov. 2 is the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the ISS, NASA officials wrote on the space station blog — and during 189 total spacewalks, astronauts have ventured out to do the tasks necessary to keep the orbiting habitat running.

Scott Kelly is embarked on his third space mission, while Lindgren is a spaceflight rookie.

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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A Symbol: An in-space ballerina and hypersonic flying marvel, the Space Shuttle Orbiter is almost impossible for others to duplicate and continues to generate international admiration and respect for U.S. technical capabilities. Full Potential Not Yet Realized: The multi-functional Orbiter has performed “as designed” on all assignments including reentry and a key role in the International Space Station (ISS) assembly. Like any new manned system, as crews and engineers become more familiar (like a helicopter) performance “in the box” improves and extending-the-box opportunities are identified. So far the Orbiter has operated generally within the box.

Fwd: Dawn Heads Toward Final Orbit

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 27, 2015 at 10:45:48 AM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Dawn Heads Toward Final Orbit

 

 

October 26, 2015

Dawn Heads Toward Final Orbit

This mosaic shows Ceres' Occator crater and surrounding terrain from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Occator is about 60 miles (90 kilometers) across and 2 miles (4 kilometers) deep. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
› Full image and caption

Dawn Mission Status Report

NASA's Dawn spacecraft fired up its ion engine on Friday, Oct. 23, to begin its journey toward its fourth and final science orbit at dwarf planet Ceres. The spacecraft completed two months of observations from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers) and transmitted extensive imagery and other data to Earth.

The spacecraft is now on its way to the final orbit of the mission, called the low-altitude mapping orbit. Dawn will spend more than seven weeks descending to this vantage point, which will be less than 235 miles (380 kilometers) from the surface of Ceres. In mid-December, Dawn will begin taking observations from this orbit, including images at a resolution of 120 feet (35 meters) per pixel.

Of particular interest to the Dawn team is Occator crater, home to Ceres' bright spots. A new mosaic of images from Dawn's third science orbit highlights the crater and surrounding terrain.

More information on the Dawn mission is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/dawn

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

 

Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6425
Elizabeth.Landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2015-329  

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Fwd: Microscopic pathogens found living on ISS

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 27, 2015 at 10:55:53 AM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Microscopic pathogens found living on ISS

 

 

October 26, 2015

High-Tech Methods Study Bacteria on the International Space Station

The International Space Station, as seen from space shuttle Atlantis in 2011. Image credit: NASA
› Larger view

Where there are people, there are bacteria, even in space. But what kinds of bacteria are present where astronauts live and work?

Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions, used state-of-the-art molecular analysis to explore the microbial environment on the International Space Station. They then compared these results to the bacteria found in clean rooms, which are controlled and thoroughly cleaned laboratory environments on Earth. They report their findings in the open access journal Microbiome.

Examining samples from an air filter and a vacuum dust bag from the space station, researchers found opportunistic bacterial pathogens that are mostly innocuous on Earth but can lead to infections that result in inflammations or skin irritations. In general, they found that the human skin-associated bacteria Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium (Actinobacteria) but not Staphylococcus were more abundant on the station than in Earth-based clean rooms.

"Studying the microbial community on the space station helps us better understand the bacteria present there, so that we can identify species that could potentially damage equipment or pose harms to astronaut health. It also helps us identify areas that need more rigorous cleaning," said Kasthuri Venkateswaran, who led the research at JPL with collaborators Aleksandra Checinska, the study's first author, and Parag Vaishampayan.

The findings of this study help NASA establish a baseline for monitoring the cleanliness of the space station, which will in turn help manage astronaut health in the future. However, with this particular type of DNA analysis, researchers could not conclude whether these bacteria are harmful to astronaut health.

The space station is a unique environment, featuring microgravity, space radiation, elevated carbon dioxide and constant presence of humans. Understanding the nature of the communities of microbes -- what scientists call "the microbiome" -- in the space station is key to managing astronaut health and maintenance of equipment.

Previous studies of the station have used traditional microbiology techniques, which culture bacteria and fungi in the lab, to assess the composition of the microbial community. Now, Venkateswaran and colleagues are using the latest DNA sequencing technologies to rapidly and precisely identify the microorganisms present on the space station.

"Deep sequencing allows us to get a closer look at the microbial population than with traditional methods," Venkateswaran said.

The team compared samples from the station's air filter and vacuum bag with dust from two JPL clean rooms. While clean rooms circulate fresh air, the space station filters and recirculates existing air. Also, importantly, there are always six people living on the space station, whereas a cleanroom may see 50 people go in and out in a day, but not be inhabited continuously. Clean rooms are not airtight, but there are several layers of rooms that would prevent the free exchange of air particulates.

The researchers analyzed the samples for microorganisms, and then stained their cells with a dye to determine whether they were living or dead. This enabled them to measure the size and diversity of viable bacterial and fungal populations, and determine how closely the conditions in the Earth clean rooms compare with the space station environment.

Their results show that Actinobacteria made up a larger proportion of the microbial community in the space station than in the cleanrooms. The authors conclude that this could be due to the more stringent cleaning regimens possible on Earth. The research did not address the virulence of these pathogens in closed environments or the risk of skin infection to astronauts.

Using these newer DNA sequencing technologies, researchers could also, in the future, study how microgravity affects bacteria. The current thinking is that microgravity is not favorable to bacterial survival generally, but that some species that can withstand it may become more virulent. Such research will be important for long-duration space missions, such as NASA's journey to Mars.

Other study co-authors include Alexander J. Probst of the University of California, Berkeley; James R. White of Resphera Biosciences, Baltimore; Deepika Kumar, Victor G. Stepanov, and George E. Fox of the University of Houston, Texas; Henrik R. Nilsson of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; Duane L. Pierson of NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston; and Jay Perry of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama.

This research was carried out on a competitive grant awarded by the NASA Space Biology program. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.

 

Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6425
Elizabeth.Landau@jpl.nasa.gov

Adapted from a Microbiome press release.

2015-330  

 

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Microscopic pathogens found living on the International Space Station

Deborah Netburn

Contact Reporter

 

 

Astronauts are not the only life forms to inhabit the International Space Station. 

The ISS is also home to trillions of microscopic space dwellers that live in the air and on the surfaces of the floating space laboratory. This community of fungus and bacteria make up the space station's unique microbiome.

A new analysis of the bugs living on the ISS found that there are more microbes living in the space station than there are in the carefully controlled cleanrooms at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here on Earth. The researchers also detected some microbial strains on the ISS that could be harmful to human health.

The results of the new analysis were published in the journal Microbiome.

NASA and other space agencies have been monitoring the collection of microbes that live on the ISS for 15 years, gathering dust from air vents and surfaces, and then growing those samples in labs both in space and on Earth to see what strains of bacteria and fungus could be detected.

However, that technique has some flaws. For example, there are some types of microbes that are more difficult to grow in the lab, and so they may have been underrepresented in previous studies. As NASA looks to long-term manned missions like sending people to Mars, the agency wants to learn as much as possible about the microscopic community that might inadvertently tag along.

The new study relied on DNA sequencing technologies that take into account all the bugs on the ISS, not just those that can grow well in a lab.

The research team looked at two samples. One was taken from an air-filter screen that had been in place for 40 months, and helped scientists determine what organisms were living in the recycled air of the space station. A second sample came from a vacuum cleaner bag whose contents represented the microbes living on the space station's surfaces.

The DNA analysis revealed that the majority of the bacteria found on the ISS is associated with human skin, and very little of it was found in cleanrooms on Earth. The researchers also detected some strains that have a potential to pose a risk to human health, especially for people who have compromised immune systems.

"Astronauts are often in a compromised state in microgravity because their bodies are going through so many changes, " said Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a microbiologist at JPL who led the study. "In an immuno-compromised condition, some of these bacteria could lead to disease."

But just because some of these microbes could lead to disease, it doesn't mean they will. More work needs to be done to see exactly how many of these pathogenic microbes are on board the space station, and if they are virulent, meaning if they are making toxins. 

"One or two cells that are virulent may be there, but that might not be enough to cause disease," Venkateswaran said.

The study provides a baseline full spectrum of the microbes on the space station, but there is still more work to be done. The next step is to see whether any of these pathogenic microbes are abundant and if they might pose problems for astronauts in the future.

"We are stepping in the right direction, and NASA is aware that these are the things required for tomorrow's human mission to Mars," he said.  

 

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times 

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Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6.

People, You should be MAD AS HELL---- write your reps/ senators REGAIN Shuttle like Capabilities

Look at the waste in all parts of the gov, & the absolutely dumb statements of the liberals. Hell, they aren't even supporting the inferior cots approach. Meanwhile we pay Russia!

Write your reps/senators everyday!
We don't have to put up with this. Start blogging & get your friends to do likewise!

Sent from my iPad

Fwd: 30 Years Since Challenger's Last Successful Mission

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 25, 2015 at 7:56:23 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 30 Years Since Challenger's Last Successful Mission

 

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
October 24th, 2015

 

'Dallas? You Mean the City?' 30 Years Since Challenger's Last Successful Mission (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

Thirty years ago, next week, Shuttle Challenger launched on her final successful mission. Photo Credit: NASA

It is a dismaying fact of history that the name "Challenger"—when spoken in relation to the second spaceworthy vehicle of NASA's shuttle fleet—is so often associated only with the dreadful catastrophe which snuffed out seven lives on the cold morning of 28 January 1986. However, Challenger had flown nine successful missions before tragic 51L, during which she delivered several major satellite payloads into orbit, transported 46 individual astronauts beyond Earth's "sensible" atmosphere, supported six EVAs, and might have gone on to deliver the shuttle's first planetary-bound emissary toward Jupiter. Thirty years ago, in October 1985, Challenger embarked on what would turn out to be her last fully successful mission—a mission which would stand until the end of the shuttle era as the only human spaceflight to both launch and land with as many as eight crew members.

Sadly, only four of those crew members are still with us, following the tragic death of German Payload Specialist Reinhard Furrer in an aircraft accident in September 1995 and last year's trio of untimely passings of Dutch Payload Specialist Wubbo Ockels in May, Commander Hank Hartsfield in July, and Pilot Steve Nagel in August. The others—Mission Specialists Bonnie Dunbar, Jim Buchli, and Guy Bluford and German Payload Specialist Ernst Messerschmid—are therefore the only surviving members of the largest crew ever to launch from Earth into space, aboard a single vehicle. Their flight, Mission 61A, carrying the Spacelab D-1 (for "Deutschland") facility, had been principally financed by then-West Germany, although the European Space Agency (ESA) had contributed a 40-percent share, in return for having one of "its" astronauts aboard Challenger as a unique third Payload Specialist. It was the only occasion in the 30-year shuttle program that as many as three Payload Specialists flew aboard the same mission, although plans existed in the pre-Challenger era for a similar number of non-career astronauts to fly aboard the Sunlab-1 mission in mid-1987.

As with the later flight of STS-73, described in last weekend's AmericaSpace history articles, Spacelab D-1 was intended as an around-the-clock operation, with the entire crew divided into two shifts—the "Red Team" and the "Blue Team"—to run a wide range of scientific and technical experiments throughout the mission. The Red Team was led by Buchli, who oversaw Challenger's flight deck during his 12 hours on-shift, whilst Bluford and Messerschmid focused on the research inside the pressurized Spacelab module. Meanwhile, the Blue Team was led by Nagel, with Dunbar and Furrer working on the science. Meanwhile, Hartsfield and Ockels maintained flexible timelines, anchoring their schedules across both shifts, but usually in line with the Blue Team.

Led by white-haired Commander Hank Hartsfield, the crew of Mission 61A departs the Operations & Checkout (O&C) Building on 30 October 1985, bound for Pad 39A and their ship, Challenger. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Due to the 24-hour activities, the respective halves of the 61A were required to "sleep-shift" in the days preceding their launch on 30 October 1985. "Jim, Ernst and I had to do a circadian rhythm shift," remembered Bluford in his NASA oral history, "so, for us, the launch was coming near the end of our work day. While in quarantine, one team was up, while the other was in bed. A new lighting system had been installed in the crew quarters to facilitate the shift in circadian rhythm. Once we got on-orbit, the Blue Team activated Spacelab, while the Red Team went to bed. We had four soundproof bunks to sleep in, while the Blue Team was at work. The two-shift operations worked very well on-orbit, with both teams up at the same time during breakfast and dinner, when we transferred Spacelab operations. The simultaneous transfer of responsibility—both on-orbit, as well as on the ground—went smoothly, as we exchanged information and updated our Flight Data Files. Each of the crew shared a sleep bunk with a member from the opposite team."

With a 54.1-percent financial stake in Spacelab, it is unsurprising that West Germany had committed itself to at least one "dedicated," national mission of the reusable research facility. Even Mission 61A's launch time of 12:00 noon EDT—"banker's hours," Bonnie Dunbar later joked—had been carefully timed, to allow for maximum television coverage in West Germany. Dunbar, Bluford, and Nagel had been training since February 1984, with NASA having noted at the time that it intended "to have three-member crews share flight deck responsibilities on future Spacelab-type missions." Six months later, in August, the names of Hartsfield and Buchli were attached to Spacelab D-1, which had by then also gained its trio of Payload Specialists. Originally listed as "Mission 51K," it was initially assigned to Atlantis, then Columbia, and eventually Challenger, although unlike many other flights its projected launch date remained fixed in the September-October 1985 timeframe.

In her NASA oral history, Dunbar remembered that her early training brought her face-to-face with some of the same prejudices which she had seen as a young woman, trying to enter an engineering career. Many of the West German medical experiments for the $180 million Spacelab D-1 were not intended to include female blood and there existed concerns that it might ruin their data. She remembered being told, to her face, and wryly wondered if NASA had deliberately assigned her to the mission, in order to offend the Germans. Equally, the Vestibular Sled, which would run along the center aisle of the Spacelab module, did not fit her, and it was eventually George W.S. Abbey, then-head of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate, who came to her aid and insisted that the Germans redesign their equipment to the percentile spread which included Dunbar.

As training progressed, she learned German and developed a good working relationship with her crewmates, including Reinhard Furrer. There was occasional time for banter, too, particularly when Furrer expressed astonishment that Dunbar had never heard of the television show, Dallas. When he first asked her about it, she was convinced he meant the Texan city, but to be fair her engineering career had consumed her and watching television had been the last thing on Dunbar's mind. The crew trained at Porz Wahnheide, south of Cologne, as well as at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Ala., in order to prepare for a total of 76 experiments in life and materials sciences. With names like Werkstofflabor, Prozesskamer, Biowissenschaften, and Biorack, they sounded like fearsome medieval tools of torture, but in fact ran the gamut in studying materials processing, fluid physics, and the behavior of biological organisms in space.

Spacelab D-1's mission designation eventually shifted from "51K" to "61A" and would become the first shuttle flight to be run from outside the United States. Although the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, Texas, retained overall control, the German Space Operations Centre (GSOC) at Oberpfaffenhofen, just outside Munich, managed daily research activities. Over the course of the mission, this worked well, with the exception that Oberpfaffenhofen's limited data-transmission facilities meant that a number of functions had to be overseen by JSC. Moreover, with only one Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) operational at the time, Spacelab D-1 would receive minimal communications coverage over about 30 percent of each orbit and it was left to the Intelsat V geostationary satellite to relay data to an Earth station at Raisting in Bavaria and from thence to Oberpfaffenhoften, via microwave link. "Not having a U.S. mission manager made it more complex," Steve Nagel remembered, years later, "but I see [Spacelab D-1 as] an early lead-in to the space station. It was hard for Hank to pull together and complicated when you're dealing overseas. We got along fine with the Germans, but we butted heads about things and the long-distance part made it more complex."

Beautiful view of Challenger, rolling out to Pad 39A for the last time. Her next mission, tragic 51L, would fly from Pad 39B. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Despite the focus of the mission and the common language currency always being English, on a few occasions German was spoken over the space-to-ground communications link, including one opportunity for Messerschmid and Bluford to speak to the head of Bavaria. "The conversation was conducted in German with Ernst doing all the talking," Bluford remembered years later. "Although the mission's dialogue was conducted primarily in English, infrequently, the Payload Specialists would revert to German during on-orbit discussions." Hartsfield remembered that the decision was a controversial one, with the Germans insisting that their language be spoken to controllers at a German site in Bavaria. "I opposed that, for safety reasons," he explained. "We can't have things going on in which my part of the payload crew can't understand what they're getting ready to do. It was clearly up front: the operational language will be English. We finally cut a deal … that in special cases, where there was real urgency, that we could have another language used, but before any action is taken, it has to be translated into English so that the commander or my other shift operator lead and the payload crew can understand it."

For Steve Nagel, Spacelab D-1 offered him the chance to fly a second shuttle mission within just four months in 1985, creating a personal landing-to-launch record which would endure for more than a decade. Originally named as a member of Mission 51A, planned for October 1984, Nagel's first flight was repeatedly postponed and eventually flew as Mission 51G in June 1985. However, his second flight didn't move. He spoke to 51G Commander Dan Brandenstein, who talked to George Abbey and negotiated for Nagel to remain on both missions. "I don't think they'd ever do that today," Nagel reflected, years later, "so I owe Dan for the fact that I was able to hang onto both of those."

As a result, when Challenger rose from Pad 39A at the stroke of midday on 30 October 1985, a mere 128 days separated Nagel's first shuttle landing and his second shuttle launch. This record would not be broken until the summer of 1997, when the entire STS-83 crew flew a shortened mission in April and were rapidly recycled to fly again in July. But Nagel can have had little time to ponder his good fortune, for he also occupied a different role on his second flight, moving from a Mission Specialist to the Pilot's seat. In the seconds after liftoff, as Hartsfield and Nagel monitored their instruments, a 102-degree "Roll Program" maneuver positioned Challenger onto the proper flight azimuth for a 200-mile (320-km) orbit, inclined 57 degrees to the equator.

The next seven days would be the last time that Challenger would ever fly in space.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
October 25th, 2015

'The Most Beautiful Thing': 30 Years Since Challenger's Last Successful Mission (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

 

In one of the final views of Challenger in space, the orbiter sails over the cloud-bedecked Earth, with the Spacelab D-1 module clearly visible in her payload bay. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Thirty years ago, next week, Space Shuttle Challenger flew in space for the final time. Mission 61A—the ninth and last orbital voyage for the second space-rated shuttle—would make history by becoming the first U.S. piloted spaceflight to be controlled from outside the United States. Yet it also has an as-yet-unassailed place in the history books. As outlined in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, Commander Hank Hartsfield and Pilot Steve Nagel were joined by Mission Specialists Bonnie Dunbar, Jim Buchli, and Guy Bluford, together with Payload Specialists Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid of then-West Germany and Wubbo Ockels of Holland, producing the world's first eight-member spacefaring crew. Although STS-71 in mid-1995 would return to Earth with eight crew members, it would launch with seven, and Mission 61A therefore remains unique in the annals of space exploration for having transported the largest-ever number of people to and from orbit aboard the same vehicle.

Launched at precisely midday EST on 30 October 1985—and flying for what would turn out to be her final time from Pad 39A—Challenger was inserted into an orbit of 200 miles (320 km), inclined 57 degrees to the equator, after which the "Blue Team," led by Steve Nagel, set to work configuring the vehicle for seven days of operations and activating 76 life and microgravity science experiments in the pressurized Spacelab D-1 (for "Deutschland") facility in the payload bay. In order to handle around-the-clock research, Nagel, Dunbar, and Furrer's shift was balanced by the "Red Team" of Buchli, Bluford, and Messerschmid, although Hartsfield and Ockels tended to align their work schedules with the Blue Shift. "Wubbo decided to freelance," remembered Hartsfield. "He didn't have a fixed shift. His shift would overlap the other two shifts. It was kind of a weird arrangement. He chose to sleep in the airlock. He had a sleeping bag and the only trouble was that people going back and forth would bump him as they went through there." At the post-flight press conference, Hartsfield jokingly referred to Ockels as the "Purple Team."

In honor of the traditions of his Dutch homeland, Ockels took a large bag of gouda cheese as part of his personal allowance. "The coolest part of the vehicle," said Hartsfield, "was the tunnel that went from the middeck to the lab. He taped that bag of gouda up in the tunnel. It was so convenient that anybody that went there—on the way back and forth—reached in. About the second or third day, he was upset because two-thirds of his cheese was gone!"

Reinhard Furrer and Bonnie Dunbar at work inside the Spacelab module. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

In a manner not dissimilar to the Spacelab-3 mission, earlier in 1985, Challenger was oriented in a gravity gradient attitude to provide a quiescent microgravity environment for the on-board materials processing and fluid physics investigations. "There's a little bit of atmospheric drag, even at those altitudes, and there's a gravity effect from one end of the shuttle to the other," explained Nagel, "which will cause it to change attitudes, so you get it in a stable attitude before you turn the jets off. This is interesting, because usually you want the long axis pointed at the Earth, either tail to the Earth or nose to the Earth, and the wing oriented in some way that it'll be fairly stable. And we would get it in this attitude, which was nose at the Earth, and the right wing pretty well forward. You 'slide' along like that and get it all stable and turn off the jets, and it would just stay there. It would slowly wander around a little bit and roll over a long period, like half-hour or so, kind of oscillate. It made for very interesting Earth viewing; it's almost like you're suspended in a gondola."

Perhaps demonstrative of the relative monotony of Spacelab flights for pilots, Nagel's job consisted of periodically purging the fuel cells, dumping waste water, taking photographs, and preparing meals for the rest of the crew on his shift. "But the good thing about the mission," he said, "was the high inclination. We flew 57 degrees, which means you cover most of the inhabited part of the world. It was just a bonanza of Earth observations. We shot all of our film." For Hartsfield, the comparatively relaxed pace for the "orbiter crew" allowed him to indulge in some light-hearted banter, particularly as Halloween coincided with Challenger's second day in space. "I took the back off one of the ascent checklists," he said, "drew a face on it, cut out eye holes, got some string and made a mask! I took one of the stowage bags and went trick-or-treating in the lab. They don't do Halloween in Germany, so they didn't know what I was up to! I decided not to pull any tricks on them, but I didn't get much in my bag. One of the guys took a picture of me with that mask on, and somehow it got released back in the U.S. About a month after the flight, I got a letter from a congressman who had a complaint from one of his constituents about her tax money being spent to buy toys for astronauts! I had to explain that nothing was done and it was made in flight from material we didn't need anymore. It was just fun."

The final full flight of Challenger passed remarkably quietly. One of the few problems experienced was a cabin leak, which triggered alarms on several occasions. "We discovered, later on, the leak was due to one of the experiments inadvertently venting into space," said Bluford. "We also had a false fire alarm go off on us during flight." Nonetheless, despite the hectic, around-the-clock pace, some time was granted to each spacefarer simply to gaze down on the Home Planet.

The first spaceflight to launch and land with as many as eight crewmates, Mission 61A retains its unique place in the annals of human space exploration to this day. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

"We were flying into darkness, passing over Tasmania," Buchli told a Smithsonian interviewer, years later, "and heading down toward Antarctica. The southern aurora was just unbelievable! It looked like an octopus sitting over the South Pole, with tentacles of light coming out. The orbiter was flying upside down, with the nose pointing toward the pole, and the tentacles shimmered a fluorescent blue-pink. It was like the whole nose was bathed in aurora. Even though we were much higher, you could still see the glow off the front of the nose. I knew what was coming, because I had seen the same geometry when we passed over the pole the day before. I went down to the middeck and literally grabbed Reinhard Furrer, who was on the other shift … and stuffed him up there in the nose of the vehicle. We're lying upside down, with all the switches and circuit breakers next to our chests, and we're peeking out the front windows, straining to look to the side of the orbiter. For probably ten minutes, we watched these shimmering bands coming off the South Pole. Finally, Reinhard said "Jim, that was fantastic! That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Then he went back downstairs to work."

Returning to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 6 November, the shuttle's descent to the desert runway was picture-perfect. "Challenger, we show you on-glideslope, on-centerline," came the call from the Capcom, seated in the Mission Control Center (MCC) at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. "Surface winds are calm."

"Roger," came the call from Hartsfield.

A few seconds later, Nagel deployed the landing gear and Hartsfield brought his ship to a smooth touchdown on Runway 17 at 9:44 a.m. local time, wrapping up a mission of just a little over seven full days. During rollout, he performed a computerized steering test of Challenger's nose landing gear, ahead of plans to resume shuttle landings at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, following an instance of seized brakes and a burst tire at the end of Mission 51D in April 1985. Although he considered the test a success, Hartsfield felt that attempting KSC landings was somewhat premature. In 49 seconds, and around 9,840 feet (3,000 meters), he brought Challenger to a halt and announced "Wheels Stop."

"Roger, wheels stop, Challenger," came the reply from the Capcom. "Welcome home and congratulations on a beautiful flight. Henry, we're working on your post-landing deltas and we'll get right back to you."

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult not to view Mission 61A as the final swansong of Challenger's career, for less than three months later—on 28 January 1986—and through no fault of her own, she would vanish in a fireball, killing her 10th crew and stalling the entire shuttle program for almost three years. Hindsight bias, of course, allows us to regard Spacelab D-1 as the end of an era, which in a sense it was for Challenger, but on the other hand a bright future might have stretched ahead of her in 1986. As described in a previous AmericaSpace article, the "moderately complex" Mission 51L, with its already-baselined satellite deployment and retrieval activities, would have been followed by Challenger becoming the first shuttle to launch a spacecraft onto an interplanetary trajectory. Later in 1986, she would have retrieved NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) from orbit and would have staged her first classified Department of Defense mission. All told, 1986 might have seen Challenger fly on as many as four occasions for the first time in her spacefaring career.

Alas, in one of the great tragedies of history, it was not to be. And on the freezing morning of 28 January 1986, Challenger's Golden Age came crashing to a premature end.

 

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