|
|
|
|
|
Astronauts giving Atlantis full post-launch inspection BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: May 12, 2009 The Atlantis astronauts were awakened at 5:01 a.m. Tuesday to kick off a busy day of heat shield inspections, spacesuit checkouts, tool preps and rendezvous rocket firings to fine tune the shuttle's approach to the Hubble Space Telescope. If all goes well, commander Scott Altman will position Atlantis directly below the bus-size observatory just before 1 p.m. Wednesday so Megan McArthur, operating the shuttle's robot arm, can pluck the telescope out of open space and mount it in the ship's cargo bay for servicing.
The post-Columbia procedure has been modified for Atlantis' mission because the astronauts cannot take advantage of the International Space Station's crew to help inspect the heat shield. And, of course, the station is not available to Altman's crew for "safe haven" if any problems are discovered that might prevent a safe re-entry. To protect against such worst-case scenarios, a second shuttle - Endeavour - is being prepped for launch to rescue the Atlantis astronauts if necessary, eliminating the need for safe haven aboard the space station. To make up for the lost space station inspections, the Atlantis astronauts are using a modified inspection plan that will duplicate, if not exceed, the thoroughness of the space station procedure. Late Monday, shortly after reaching orbit, the crew used the robot arm to inspect the payload bay and the shuttle's upper crew cabin exterior. "What we're going to do on flight day two is, we added in a belly tile survey," said flight director Tony Ceccacci. "It's an additional two hours 10 minutes of survey ops. ... They've developed the survey that meets all the required detection requirements. So what we'll wind up doing is we'll be doing the starboard wing leading edge and there's a point where we break out of that and then do starboard part of the belly. That takes about 30 minutes or so there. "After we finish the belly up, that starboard belly portion, we'll go ahead and finish up the starboard wing leading edge, go ahead and do the nose cap after that and then go to the port wing leading edge. And there's a point in there that we break out and do about 96 minutes of belly survey. Then after that, we go back into the port wing leading edge survey and get that done and then we're done for the day." During space station flights, approaching shuttle's pause just below the lab complex and carry out a slow back-flip maneuver, exposing the belly of the ship to the station crew for a detailed photo survey using 400-mm and 800-mm lenses. The additional belly tile surveys added to the Atlantis timeline will make up for the station procedure and give engineers just as much, or more, data on the health of the heat shield than they get from a station flight. The rendezvous pitch maneuver is carried out early in a mission and as such, only provides insight into ascent debris damage. The primary threat for the Atlantis astronauts, given the new techniques that duplicate what is normally achieved with the RPM, is impacts from space debris and micrometeoroids. The space station orbits at an altitude of about 220 miles while Hubble circles the globe at an altitude of 350 miles. The space debris environment - bits of junk from old satellites and rocket bodies - is worse at Hubble's altitude than the station's. "Remember now, the RPM, it's prime purpose is to inspect the bottom of the vehicle for ascent debris damage," said Paul Hill, director of mission operations at the Johnson Space Center. "What we have more of on HST is statistically higher risk of orbital debris because of the higher altitude. So the RPM really isn't designed or placed in the mission to catch that. That's more of a long-duration thing and our greater concern for that kind of damage we pick up with the late inspection." The late inspection will be carried out after the Hubble Space Telescope is re-deployed to look for any signs of damage that might have occurred since the post-launch inspections. Engineers plan to complete their initial assessment of ascent imagery and the results of the crew's post-launch inspections by late Wednesday to determine the overall health of the thermal protection system and whether a more detailed "focused" inspection might be needed later to examine any trouble spots. No obvious problems were seen during launch Monday and flight controllers say Atlantis appears to be in excellent health. Even so, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are continuing to process Endeavour for a possible rescue flight if needed. Launch director Mike Leinbach said the goal is to get Endeavour ready for the start of a three-day countdown and then to hold there while Atlantis' mission proceeds. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision B of the NASA television schedule): EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 05/12/09 05:01 AM...00...15...00...Crew wakeup 06:26 AM...00...16...25...NC-2 rendezvous rocket firing 07:01 AM...00...17...00...Shuttle arm (SRMS) unberths inspection boom (OBSS) 07:36 AM...00...17...35...Airlock prepped 08:16 AM...00...18...15...Flight support structure prepped 08:26 AM...00...18...25...Spacesuit checkout 09:01 AM...00...19...00...Starboard RCC survey 09:41 AM...00...19...40...Spacesuit swap 09:51 AM...00...19...50...Starboard belly tile survey 10:11 AM...00...20...10...Spacesuit checkout 10:16 AM...00...20...15...Starboard wing RCC survey 10:26 AM...00...20...25...Crew meals begin 11:31 AM...00...21...30...Nose cap survey 12:21 PM...00...22...20...Port wing RCC survey 12:36 PM...00...22...35...REBA checkout 01:06 PM...00...23...05...EVA tool unstow/config 01:11 PM...00...23...10...Port belly tile survey 01:31 PM...00...23...30...10.2 psi depressurization 02:26 PM...01...00...25...Ergometer setup 02:30 PM...01...00...29...Mission status briefing on NTV 02:31 PM...01...00...30...HST: Solid state recorder playback 03:06 PM...01...01...05...Port wing RCC survey 03:23 PM...01...01...22...Progress 33 docking with space station on NTV 04:06 PM...01...02...05...T-0 umbilical survey 04:21 PM...01...02...20...OBSS berthing 05:00 PM...01...02...59...Post-management team briefing on NTV 05:21 PM...01...03...20...FCMS ops 05:36 PM...01...03...35...OMS pod survey 05:51 PM...01...03...50...Rendezvous tools checkout 05:51 PM...01...03...50...Laser scan data downlink 06:01 PM...01...04...00...HST: Aperture door closed 06:41 PM...01...04...40...NC-3 rendezvous rocket firing 08:36 PM...01...06...35...HST: Maneuver to rendezvous attitude 09:01 PM...01...07...00...Crew sleep begins 09:01 PM...01...07...00...HST: Low-gain direct to TDRS 09:26 PM...01...07...25...HST: 3 gyro ops reconfig 09:30 PM...01...07...29...Space telescope operations update on NTV 10:00 PM...01...07...59...Daily highlights reel on NTV
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
VIDEO:
PREVIEW ANIMATION OF HEAT SHIELD INSPECTIONS 