Fwd: 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 15, 2015 at 8:07:11 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
November 14th, 2015

'Most Serious and Significant Work': 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38 (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

Atlantis roars into the night on 15 November 1990, 25 years ago, tomorrow, to begin the secretive mission of STS-38. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

A quarter-century ago, the world stood on the brink of outright conflict in the Middle East, following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Against this stormy backdrop of an impending war which would define a generation, as well as set the groundwork for later assaults on Iraq and the eventual overthrow of Saddam, in November 1990—25 years ago, next week—Atlantis rocketed into orbit on the seventh classified shuttle mission for the Department of Defense. To this day, the exact details of what the five-man STS-38 crew did during their five days in orbit remain enshrouded in secrecy. But as with so many aspects of these classified missions, real events and rumors have become strangely juxtaposed and there can be little doubt that it will be many more years before any hard facts about this mysterious flight see the light of day.

As outlined in a previous AmericaSpace series of articles, available here and here, STS-38 was originally targeted for launch in May 1990, but fell victim to a fleetwide series of hydrogen leaks which plagued Atlantis and Columbia. Its crew—Commander Dick Covey, Pilot Frank Culbertson, and Mission Specialists Charles "Sam" Gemar, Bob Springer, and Carl Meade—were announced by NASA on 11 May 1989 and entered a standard 12-month training regime. Springer had flown one previous mission, and Covey two, whilst their crewmates were all embarking on their first flights. For Covey, the assignment did not come as a complete surprise, for in early 1989 he had replaced Brewster Shaw as the Astronaut Office's lead representative on the DoD shuttle missions. In spite of its relatively benign appearance on paper, the assignment exposed Covey to the innermost details of the most secret missions ever undertaken by the shuttle fleet.

The STS-38 crew consisted of (from left) Pilot Frank Culbertson, Mission Specialists Carl Meade, Bob Springer, and Sam Gemar, and Commander Dick Covey. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

The insights to which Covey was privy were far higher than those of his fellow astronauts, who had been assigned to missions. "Each crew was read-into the particular DoD program that they were supporting," he told the NASA oral historian, "but there needed to be someone who was aware of what all of those missions were going to be doing and working that interface with the appropriate agencies within the DoD to make sure that the crew issues that may cross all of those were being taken care of." Covey's role was to manage the classified materials and the staff, whose involvement demanded a level of security clearance beyond "Top Secret." Many of his meetings were held in "special environments" and the importance of his role was underlined by the fact that even the astronauts for one DoD mission did not always know what their fellow astronauts, assigned to another DoD mission, might be working on. From STS-27 in December 1988 until his own flight, two years later, Covey was thus involved with some of the most tantalizing missions ever flown in the U.S. human spaceflight program.

In fact, Covey had been undecided after his second shuttle voyage—STS-26, the post-Challenger Return to Flight (RTF) mission, in September 1988—about whether to remain with NASA or return to his military career. "I was approached … about returning to an Air Force assignment as a Test Wing Commander over at Eglin Air Force Base," he told the NASA oral historian. "Going through the process of making my decision on whether I wanted to accept their offer to come back to a very good job or to stay and fly again, I had discussions with [then-Chief of the Astronaut Office] Dan Brandenstein about what's going to happen next. In that discussion with Dan is when he told me of his intent for me to fly STS-38." With this assignment, the DoD lead representative job made more sense. "Brewster left and went off and flew one of the DoD missions … and so I kind of rolled in behind him in doing that."

As their training progressed, and the shuttle manifest contorted its way through the first full year after the post-Challenger RTF, it became clear that STS-38 would launch no sooner than mid-summer, with Atlantis having touched down at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 4 March, to wrap up the STS-36 classified mission. Returned from the West Coast to Florida atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), the vehicle was rolled into the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 14 March and underwent a comparatively smooth effort to ready her for STS-38. On 8 June, Atlantis moved into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for stacking onto her bulbous External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). Ten days later, she was transferred out to Pad 39A, tracking an opening launch attempt in mid-July.

Unfortunately, her sister ship, Columbia, had suffered a series of seemingly inscrutable hydrogen leaks from the 17-inch-diameter (43 cm) disconnect fitting. This hardware, located on the orbiter's belly, allowed liquid oxygen and hydrogen from the ET to enter the aft compartment and power the cluster of three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs). Shortly after the STS-38 stack reached the pad, NASA opted to perform a "tanking test" to verify that Atlantis was not affected by the same problem. Two methods of propellant-loading were followed: an initial "slow-fill" chilled down the pipework in her aft compartment and tank structure, in order to preclude the risk of boiling and the generation of excessive quantities of gas, followed by a higher-rate "fast-fill."

The historic "rollback" of the STS-38 stack (right) on 9 August 1990, which occurred as the STS-35 stack was returning to the pad. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

On 29 June, liquid hydrogen was pumped into Atlantis' ET and, to engineers' dismay, small concentrations of gas were detected in the vicinity of the disconnect hardware when the fueling process moved from the slow-fill into the fast-fill modes. According to NASA, the problem was "both temperature- and flow-rate-dependent," but conviction was expressed that the simultaneous leaks in Columbia and Atlantis were purely coincidental. A second tanking test was performed on 13 July, after which sealants were added to halt the leak, but a third test on 25 July revealed that it continued. Two weeks later, on 9 August—in one of the most enduring images ever taken during the 30-year shuttle program—the STS-38 stack was rolled back from Pad 39A to the VAB, passing the STS-35 stack, as Columbia made her way back out to the launch complex.

Back in the assembly building, Atlantis was destacked from her ET/SRBs and returned to the OPF on 15 August for attention to her hydrogen leakage issues. At length, she was back on Pad 39A by 12 October and promptly sailed through a tanking test, with NASA confidently scheduling STS-38 to fly no sooner than 9 November. Problems with her DoD primary payload enforced a slight delay until the 15th, with media being informed only that the launch would occur during a four-hour "window" from 6:30 through 10:30 p.m. EST. In spite of fears of high winds at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF)—to be used in the event of a Return to Launch Site (RTLS) abort—which initially placed estimates of acceptable weather at just 40 percent, conditions improved to 70-percent favorable and Atlantis speared into orbit at 6:48 p.m., turning night into day across the Space Coast.

"Liftoff of Atlantis," came the call from the Public Affairs Officer (PAO), "and the crew of a classified Department of Defense flight."

In keeping with protocol on these secretive missions, all communications between the orbiter and the ground during the early stages of ascent—including Dick Covey's "Roll Program" call at T+10 seconds and, later, acknowledgement of the engine-throttle-up call from Mission Control—were blacked-out. For Covey, launching in darkness presented few surprises; his first flight in August 1985 had begun on a cusp of daybreak and he was familiar with many of the sights and sounds and sensations involved. Most of Covey's family was in attendance on the night that STS-38 launched, with the exception of his eldest daughter, Sarah, who was on the Clear Lake High School volleyball team, back in Houston, which had just won the region. She was on her way to Austin, Texas, to play in the state championship series and was on the bus when Atlantis roared into orbit. Throughout the flight, Covey would receive uplinked teleprinter messages to keep him aware of the scores.

The STS-38 crew represented all four "core" military services, with Covey and Meade from the Air Force, Culbertson from the Navy, Springer from the Marine Corps and Gemar from the Army and all were graduates of a military test pilot school. (In fact, both Springer and Meade had actually applied to NASA for both the Pilot and Mission Specialist categories.) However, flying with three "rookies" posed its own challenges. "The good news is that we weren't flying a real long mission," Covey told the NASA oral historian, years later, "so they didn't have to worry about a whole lot of things. The bad news was that our most critical operations were all on the first day, right between launch and the time we went to bed; so these guys were going to be adapting to space for a first time, with all of the "gee-whiz" factors, and we had to do our most serious and significant work that first day in deploying a payload."

As Atlantis settled into orbit on the evening of 15 November 1990, only hours before Carl Meade's 40th birthday, the STS-38 crew was ready for four days of classified operations. By this stage, three months after Saddam Hussein's annexation of Kuwait, a growing international military presence was taking shape in the Persian Gulf. Two days earlier, on 13 November, a Titan IV booster had roared into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying a Defense Support Program (DSP) infrared early-warning satellite, and there was great speculation that the payload to be deployed by Atlantis' crew would be similarly directed toward intelligence-gathering over the Middle East. Little could the STS-38 crew have known, however, that their mission would end not at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., but—for the first time since April 1985—back at their launch site in Florida.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

---

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
November 15th, 2015

'The Thing That Was Really Unique': 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38 (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

As with her launch and the bulk of her on-orbit operations, Atlantis' landing was also shrouded in gloom. She became the first orbiter to return to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in more than 5.5 years when she touched down on 20 November 1990. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Twenty-five years ago, tonight, fire and thunder rattled the marshy landscape of Florida and an artificial sunrise—for just a few minutes—created a new dawn. At 6:48 p.m. EST on 15 November 1990, Atlantis roared into orbit on the seventh classified shuttle mission for the Department of Defense. Aboard the orbiter for the projected four-day flight were Commander Dick Covey, Pilot Frank Culbertson, and Mission Specialists Carl Meade, Bob Springer, and Charles "Sam" Gemar, and STS-38 would deliver a secretive payload into space to support a gradually escalating international military presence in the Middle East, following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. For Carl Meade, it was the eve of his 40th birthday, but for all five astronauts it was culmination of months of frustrating delays and the pinnacle of five lifetimes spent dreaming about aviation.

As described in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, Atlantis' launch was originally targeted for May 1990, but shifted to the mid-July timeframe as the busy shuttle manifest took shape in the first half of that year. However, a series of hydrogen leaks associated with the 17-inch-diameter (43 cm) disconnect hardware aboard her sister ship, Columbia, prompted fleetwide inspections and a similar problem was identified on Atlantis. As a consequence, STS-38 flew several months later than planned, carrying a payload which remains shrouded in mystery and rumor, even a quarter-century later.

Its original published designation was "Air Force Program-658" (AFP-658), and initial speculation centered on the possibility that Covey's crew deployed a Magnum Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) satellite—of similar design to the payload lofted by the astronauts of Shuttle Discovery on Mission 51C in January 1985—atop a Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster. However, many years after STS-38, on-orbit images of Atlantis' vertical stabilizer revealed no trace of the donut-shaped Airborne Support Equipment (ASE) "tilt-table," which was known to have accommodated all IUS-based cargoes in the payload bay. More recently, it became generally accepted that STS-38 deployed a member of the second-generation Satellite Data Systems (SDS-B) telecommunications relays, inserted into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). All told, it is believed that three SDS-Bs were launched by the fleet of reusable orbiters, on STS-28 in August 1989, aboard STS-38 and finally on the final Department of Defense shuttle mission, STS-53 in December 1992.

The STS-38 patch, emblazoned with the surnames of Atlantis' five crew members, highlighted the "seen" and "unseen" aspects of a Department of Defense mission. Image Credit: Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Almost a decade after Covey's mission, in the spring of 1998, imagery and videotapes of an SDS-B under construction were released by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), together with the identity of its prime contractor, Hughes. Physically, the satellite resembled the Syncom-4—also called "Leasat"—military communications satellites, operated by the U.S. Navy, which were deployed from the shuttle in a sideways, frisbee-like motion. The last Syncom-4 was carried aboard STS-32 in January 1990. It has been suggested that the SDS-Bs occupied a high-apogee and low-perigee orbit, ranging from as close as 300 miles (480 km) and as distant as 23,600 miles (38,000 km), and functioning at steeply inclinations which achieved apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. This enabled them to cover two-thirds of the globe, relay spy satellite data of the entire Soviet land mass, and cover the entire north polar region in support of U.S. Air Force communications. Such wide coverage was not possible to geostationary-orbiting satellites.

The SDS-B (possibly codenamed "Quasar") featured a pair of 14.7-foot-diameter (4.5-meter) dish antennas and a third, smaller dish for Ku-band downlink. It is also believed to have carried the Heritage (Radiant Agate) infrared early-warning system for ballistic missile detection capability. Overall, the satellite measured 13.1 feet (4 meters) long and 9.8 feet (3 meters) wide in its stowed configuration, with a launch mass estimated at somewhere in the range of 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) and 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg). Although it is unclear as to how they were deployed, some observers have assumed that they were "rolled" out of the payload bay, like a Frisbee, in a similar fashion to the Hughes-built Syncom-4 satellites. Others have noted that the solid-fueled rocket booster used for the SDS-B was an Orbus-21, physically identical to the motor later fitted to Intelsat 603 by spacewalking astronauts during STS-49 in May 1992. This has prompted alternative suggestions that the SDS-B was deployed "vertically" from a special cradle in the payload bay, in an orientation closer to that of Intelsat 603 than Syncom-4.

Irrespective of how SDS-B departed Atlantis, it is certain that the deployment was completed in the early hours of 16 November 1990, about seven hours into the STS-38 mission, after which the orbiter performed a separation burn to move to a safe distance in anticipation of the firing of the satellite's motor. However, according to observer Ted Molczan, writing in February 2011, the delta-V of Atlantis' burn was less than a tenth of what it should have been for a motor attached to a payload the size of an SDS-B. Moreover, he noted that the satellite itself lingered for some time in low-Earth orbit, rather than initiating its climb to operational altitude at the next available ascending node.

Then, in 1999, came the first mutterings that STS-38 might also have launched a second, more covert payload, known only as "Prowler." Molczan explained that Prowler was deployed 22 hours after the primary payload. The shuttle's crew then apparently performed an unusual maneuver, by lowering their orbit, rather than raising it. "It also happened to arrest the separation from the SDS," Molczan wrote, "and initiate a very gradual overtaking, perhaps to create the impression of a rough station-keeping maneuver [by Atlantis] to keep Soviet attention focused on the SDS." It would also appear that the SDS-B finally fired its Perigee Kick Motor (PKM) during a 16.5-hour period which overlapped the firing of Prowler's own motor. Detection by the Soviet-operated signals intelligence station near Havana might have been circumvented, Molczan continued, by timing the deployment of Prowler very carefully to when Atlantis passed beyond the Cuban radar horizon.

This partial image of Atlantis' payload bay, acquired during the STS-38 mission, reveals the conspicuous absence of the donut-shaped Airborne Support Equipment (ASE) "tilt-table". This removed the possibility that the STS-38 crew deployed a Magnum Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) satellite. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

As for Prowler itself, even today the fiction and the speculation greatly outweigh the facts and the evidence. Due to its brightness, a case has been advanced that it was a Hughes HS-376 spacecraft "bus"—very much like the cylindrical communications satellites launched on several shuttle missions in the early 1980s—with an attached Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) to boost it into geostationary orbit. Molczan suggested a total payload weight of around 9,900 pounds (4,500 kg), of which 2,860 pounds (1,300 kg) was the satellite itself and a further 4,600 pounds (2,100 kg) for the PAM-D, and argued that the ability of the shuttle to carry both it and the SDS-B was well within its performance envelope.

Clearly, STS-38 was a heavy mission, as highlighted by its orbital altitude, which did not venture much higher than about 155 miles (250 km). "You can read a lot into that," Dick Covey admitted, years later, to NASA's oral historian. "We didn't go very high because we couldn't go very high, which says we probably had a heavy payload. That was the thing that was really unique about the whole mission." Of course, for much of the first decade after the conjectured launch of Prowler, its existence was unacknowledged. The presence of two spent rocket motors—codenamed "1990-097C" and "1990-097D" in a catalog of orbital objects—could be explained simply as representing the expended first and second stages of an IUS booster, without raising suspicion.

As to Prowler's nature, labels such as "Geolocation Platform," "Optically Stealthy," and "Inspector" have been banded around over the years and the consensus seems to be that it was some kind of low-observable satellite, employed to rendezvous and secretly inspect other nations' satellites in geostationary orbit, 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth. At face value, the mission seemed impossible. Some observers doubted that it was even possible, in 1990, to conduct unmanned rendezvous in geostationary orbit, although such exercises had long since been routinely performed by the Soviets in low-Earth orbit between Progress cargo craft and the Salyut and Mir space stations. Others countered that geostationary altitudes provide a more benign environment for telerobotic operations and relative motion control and even wondered if Prowler might have performed radio frequency blocking; literally parking itself in front of a satellite's antenna path to block its signals. Still others have gone further: that Prowler did attempt such blocking, albeit experimentally, on U.S. communications satellites, and several analysts have argued that it could have positioned itself within a foot (30 cm) of a target.

Whatever the reality, it is certain that the curtain does not stand to be lifted on STS-38 for many more years to come. Yet this quiet mission had one more surprise in store. Its landing was scheduled for 19 November 1990, after four days in space, but was routinely postponed by 24 hours, due to unacceptable crosswinds at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which caused all three opportunities for that day to be scrubbed. Unfortunately, the weather in the Mojave Desert on the 20th showed no sign of improvement and, with on-board consumables until the 21st, NASA diverted Atlantis to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It would mark the first shuttle landing in Florida since Mission 51D in April 1985, which touched down in a crosswind and suffered seized brakes and a burst tire.

It was with some surprise that Covey received a call from Entry Flight Director Lee Briscoe—bypassing the Capcom—and asked him if he was happy to divert to Florida. Although it had been more than five years since a shuttle had made landfall on the East Coast, the answer was a no-brainer for Covey. He had flown so many simulated approaches to Florida that he was more than happy to do so. The landing would occur in the late afternoon and fellow astronaut Mike Coats, flying the Gulfstream Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) on weather reconnaissance, was responsible for determining whether conditions were optimum to receive Atlantis.

Atlantis concludes the shuttle program's seventh classified Department of Defense mission on 20 November 1990. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

"This is the fall of the year," explained Covey in his NASA oral history, "and one of the things that they do in Florida during the fall is burn the underbrush in their pine forests; a very controlled type of burn, just to get everything down. They were doing that over on the west side of the [Banana] River in Florida and the winds were predominantly from the north-east … so they were blowing that smoke out over central Florida, toward Orlando." Based upon this factor, Coats recommended that Covey should land on the south-eastern end of the SLF, on Runway 33. By the time Atlantis neared the time to fire her Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines for the irreversible de-orbit burn, the winds shifted. "The smoke was coming pretty much right across the southern half of the runway," Covey recalled, "and the northern half was clear."

Coats held off from advising a landing on the Runway 15 "end"—which would have required Covey to perform a left-hand maneuver during final approach—and the astronauts were advised that the smoky conditions might prove problematic. Added to this was the fact that it was near sunset on the Space Coast and the refractive effect caused the smoke to appear thicker. A little after 4:30 p.m. EST, as Atlantis came within minutes of touching down on Runway 33, the astronauts could see very little through their windows. That said, Covey and Culbertson had great confidence in the shuttle's guidance capabilities and as the vehicle rolled out on final approach, they spotted the Precision Approach Position Indicator (PAPI) lights on the runway perimeter, barely visible through the smoke. These gave Covey the visual reference that he needed, but as Atlantis descended lower, passing into the smoke, he could see nothing but the lights; the runway itself was invisible to him. At length, the smoke cleared and there, right ahead, lay the runway.

"Frank lowered the landing gear and we landed," he recounted, "and I think, technically, I get to log an instrument approach on that!" Touchdown came at 4:42 p.m. EST. Atlantis had flown through conditions of visibility which would ordinarily never have been sanctioned and for several years afterwards, Covey enjoyed reminding Coats of his recommendation, for the Runway 15 end of the SLF was totally clear of smoke by landing time! Two weeks later, an increasingly confident NASA announced its intent to resume "operational" shuttle landings in Florida and STS-43, launched in August 1991, became the first post-Challenger mission to be specifically directed to KSC as its primary End of Mission (EOM) site. By the close of the 30-year shuttle era in July 2011, no less than 78 landings—almost 60 percent of the total 133 successful shuttle touchdowns—had been completed in Florida. 

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

---