STS-83/94 MISSION ARCHIVE Updated: 07/17/97 Microgravity Science Laboratory By William Harwood CBS News/Kennedy Space Center The following copy originally was posted on the CBS News "Up To The Minute" Current Mission space page (http://uttm.com/space/missions/current.html). Comments and corrections welcome! TABLE OF CONTENTS: -Columbia returns to Earth (07/17/97) -Astronauts defend value of shuttle, station science (07/15/97) -Combustion experiments provide insights (07/14/97) -Shuttle reflight off to smooth start (07/02/97) -Shuttle Columbia blasts off on first ever reflight (07/01/97) -Shuttle crew returns for second flight (filed 06/28/97) -Shuttle astronauts return to Earth (filed 04/08/97) -Shuttle astronauts gear up for landing (filed 04/07/97) -NASA orders shuttle Columbia home early (filed 4/6/97) -Fuel cell problem terminates mission (filed 04/05-06/97) -Shuttle Columbia blasts off on 16-day mission (filed 04/04/97) -Shuttle coolant lines insulated (filed 04/03/97) -Shuttle coolant lines insulated (filed 04/02/97) -Shuttle launch delayed one day (filed 04/01/97) -Shuttle Columbia set for launch (filed 04/01/97) ==================================================================== Columbia returns to Earth (07/17/97) The Columbia astronauts glided back to Earth today, settling to an on-time landing at 6:46:34 a.m. to close out a remarkably trouble-free 16-day science mission that was cut short in April by electrical problems. Overshadowed by the Mars Pathfinder landing and the ongoing crisis aboard the Russian Mir space station, Columbia's crew quietly accomplished virtually all the mission's objectives, carrying out more than 30 experiments in materials science, protein crystal growth and combustion research. "The mission has been executed in an outstanding way," said shuttle program manager Tommy Holloway. "All of the science objectives, including the 'highly desireables,' have been accomplished. The vehicle has performed in an absolutely exemplary manner and I could not be happier." As for being upstaged by Mars Pathfinder and Mir, flight engineer Michael Gernhardt said "we feel we're part of an overall space effort and we're happy to be part of that team." Payload commander Janice Voss, an avid science fiction fan, put a different spin on the question. "I got an email from a friend of mine during the mission saying 'this is what we thought space was going to be like when we were little kids,'" she said. "We thought when we were adults it was going to be missions on Mars, people living on a space station and shuttles going up and down. And we finally got there. It was great." Commander Jim Halsell and his crew first attempted to carry out the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission in April. But the flight was cut short after just four days because of apparent problems with one of the shuttle's three electricity producing fuel cells. The fuel cell was replaced and after a record 84-day turnaround, Columbia was relaunched July 1 with the same crew and the same set of experiments. It was the first such reflight in shuttle history, a test case for quick turnarounds that might be required during space station construction if problems are encountered in orbit. "I think this flight has demonstrated the robustness of our system and the potential for even additional flexibility in the future," Holloway said. "All in all, it was an outstanding team effort, the kind that it takes to keep us on track in the business of flying people in space." For the astronauts, the successful reflight erased the blemish caused by Columbia's shortened mission in April. "I guess the sense the crew has right now is one of satisfaction and fulfillment," he said at a post-landing news conference. "We were able to complete the mission we tried to do in April. All the scientific objectives were met for the mission and more. Whereas in April we had to explain why we came home early and the logic and the rationale and the safety reasons for that, here we can show an example of how the Kennedy Space Center people were able to meet the challenge of quickly turning around the vehicle, Johnson (Space Center) was able to quickly turn around the crew and go out and do the flight. It just feels good to be able to sit here and say that to you." During entry, the crew tested a new digital autopilot designed to reduce fuel usage during the return to Earth. The so-called wrap-around DAP was tested in segments on a half-dozen previous flights, but Columbia's was the first to land with the autopilot in its full-up mode. "What the wrap-around digital autopilot does is it will use (the shuttle's wing flaps) rather than the yaw jets during entry for control," said entry flight director Linda Ham. "This will save us aft propellant so we can use it for on-orbit activities rather than saving it for the entry. In fact, today we used about two-thirds of our normal propellant. So it does look like it's going to save us some propellant on future flights." The goal of the 85th shuttle flight was to carry out a battery of microgravity experiments in a Spacelab research module mounted in Columbia's cargo bay. The experiments were concentrated in the fields of combustion science, research into the behavior of high-technology materials, protein crystal growth and fluid physics. Additional experiments involved tests of a novel space radiator and making ultra precise measurements of the microgravity environment. "We've done better than anybody expected," mission scientist Michael Robinson said in a statement. While Columbia's Spacelab module was packed with experiments in a variety of disciplines, the combustion science generated the most public interest on Earth. More than 200 fires were set to learn more about the physics of combustion and the production of soot, giving scientists insights that could pay off in better fuel use efficiency. "We got 205 flames, which is much more than we had planned originally because the experiments went very, very well," Voss said. "The advantage of being on a 16-day flight is you get faster. By the end of the flight, we were getting very efficient running these experiments. So we were able to accomplish a lot more than we had planned." In one set of experiments, for example, the astronauts set tiny flames amounting to one-fiftieth the power of a birthday candle to help researchers "learn the burning limits of fuel mixtures," said investigator Paul Ronney of the University of Southern California. "It gives us an idea of just how lean a fuel can be and still burn. It may lead to better gas mileage and less auto emissions." Over the course of the flight, more than 35,000 commands - a shuttle record - were sent to Columbia from the Spacelab Mission Operations Control Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and reams of data were downlinked from space. "It is time for researchers to get down to the task of analyzing the data," Robinson said. "That's going to keep everyybody very busy for quite a while." For additional details about Columbia's flight and the experiments carried out, see the CBS News Mission Archive or one of the NASA web sites listed below. ==================================================================== Astronauts defend value of shuttle, station science (07/15/97) Overshadowed by the Mars Pathfinder mission, the Columbia astronauts defended the value of their Spacelab experiments today and argued the public will support similar research aboard the international space station. To keep up the pace until the station is completed, payload commander Janice Voss also said NASA is considering launching another Microgravity Science Laboratory mission like Columbia's at some point down the road, along with two other Spacelab missions devoted to learning more about how human physiology is affected by prolonged exposure to weightlessness. Only one of those flights - Neurolab 1 - is currently manifested. "We've been told that they are looking at that very thing," Voss said today during an orbital news conference. "We are flying a Neurolab next summer that's already on the books - the crew is already in training and the payloads are already in work - to look at life science experiments. They are discussing a Microgravity Science Lab 2, a follow on to this mission with much the same experiments. It's not yet on the manifest but it's under serious discussion, and another Neurolab flight to follow on to the one next summer. So we do expect to have continuing science missions both before the station flies and during the station program." Astronaut Michael Gernhardt said Spacelab missions like Columbia's and the research planned for the international space station ultimately will pay off by improving the quality of life in America and elsewhere. He said missions like Mars Pathfinder, "great achievements" that "really spark the public interest" in the short term, are complemented by human research in space. One might question his conclusions, but not his sincerity. "As we start building the space station I think you'll see a lot of public interest," he said. "And then as the science results start feeding back into society on Earth and really improving the quality of life I think people will really come to appreciate just exactly what we're doing in space and what a fine investment in the future of the country and the world that it is." Gernhardt, Voss and their five crewmates originally took off on the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission in April, but the flight was cut short after just four days by electrical problems. This time around, Columbia and its suite of Spacelab experiments have operated near flawlessly, a welcome relief to the scores of scientists and engineers who put the mission together in the first place. And, of course, it's been a relief for Columbia's crew. "From a personal standpoint, as much as the other one was a bummer, this one is a real trip," said guest researcher Roger Crouch, a self-described "nerd" with a flair for one liners. Commander James Halsell said Columbia "has performed absolutely flawlessly for us. Days have gone by without having to do an error log reset, which is our way of saying there have just been no problems whatsoever. ... So overall, our flavor for this flight is that it has done what (the previous flight) set out to do. We have completed our tasks just about and we'll be ready to come home on Thursday." He described the 16-day mission as a "great adventure" and a "fantastic opportunity." "On the other hand, a 16-day camping trip gives you the opportunity to appreciate some of the things you left back home and some of the people that you love and you look forward to seeing again in the near future," he said. "And I think that sums up the whole crew's feelings. We're glad to be here and we'll certainly be glad to go home." Landing currently is scheduled for 6:47 a.m. Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center and forecasters are predicting good weather for touchdown. Aboard the Russian Mir space station, meanwhile, Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev, flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin and U.S. astronaut Michael Foale are gearing up for a critical internal spacewalk to restore lost electrical power. A few days ago, the Columbia astronauts chatted with Foale by radio as the two ships passed in the night of space. Despite the ongoing crisis aboard Mir, Halsell said Foale is in good spirits. "We all agreed his attitude, his voice, the inflections in his voice, they were not stressed, they were very cheerful," Halsell said. "Mike is a cheerful kind of guy to begin with and you can see that that character trait has carried with him throughout the problems that they have experienced on Mir and through this phase where they are fixing the problems. Mike's attitude is just very, very upbeat and very positive." As for the risks associated with flying in space, the shuttle commander said the benefit outweighs the danger. At least to him. "I think all of us, before we flew the first time and subsequent flights, we have thought about the risks versus the benefits of doing this job and certainly, that's something each astronaut has to answer for him or herself," he said. "There are risks, and I recognize that. I also believe this is a job that I have wanted to do for a long time and I'm lucky to be here. I feel that what we're contributing is also important for the American people and, in fact, for the world. I don't know of any other job that gives me that satisfaction. So for me, the risk-benefit ratio very much falls on the side of the benefit." ==================================================================== Combustion experiments provide insights (07/14/97) The shuttle Columbia's mission is sailing smoothly into the home stretch of a marathon 16-day flight with landing on tap Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center. Lee Briscoe, a mission operations manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, says the weather looks good and all systems are "go" for entry. "To the contrary of what you may have read in some of the papers, right now there is no consideration to extending the flight," he said during an afternoon briefing. "We're looking forward to landing early Thursday morning. Columbia's really been in great shape. There are only about five or six anomalies in the anomaly log for this period and we're in the 12th or 13th day of the flight, so that's very good." Among the few problems the crew has encounted is a small half-centimeter ding in window No. 7, one of the two overhead windows in Columbia's crew cabin. But Briscoe said the presumed space debris impact is similar in size to impacts noticed during earlier missions and as such it is not an issue. As for landing Thursday, the only concern is a slight chance for early morning fog. "We have two opportunities into KSC, one about 11 minutes after sunrise, about (6:47 a.m. EDT) and the other one about (8:23 a.m. EDT)," Briscoe said. "Then there's also an Edwards (Air Force Base) pass should we need it. Looking forward to weather, the forecasts are for just a few low, scattered clouds, seven miles visibility. The first pass on Thursday, depending on whether there's precipitation in the area on Wednesday, we could see a chance of some fog. But the second opportunity looks really good and Friday looks even better." At the Marshall Space Flight Center, mission scientist Michael Robinson said the Microgravity Science Laboratory is chalking up a steady stream of successes as Columbia's crew works through the final days of a busy timeline. "I think where we are in the mission now is very much, again, like the Kentucky Derby," he said, using a favored analogy. "We're in the home stretch. Things have been going very, very well, the science teams are happy. They're also very exhausted. If you walk around the science operations area there are a lot of tired people and they've got a right to be. But they're happy tired. They're extremely happy at what they've been getting from the mission so far." Combustion experiments have generated quite a bit of interest during the flight as scientists use the weightless environment of space to study the physics of flames and soot formation. The crew has carried out 197 combustion experiment runs to date compared to 144 planned before launch. "It's been a really exciting 12 days for us on this mission," said Fred Dryer of Princeton University. "We've completed a number of experiments on two combustion facilities involving liquid hydrocarbons." Why are such studies important? Liquid hydrocarbons - gasoline, fuel oil, etc. - provide most of the world's transportation energy. In the United States, 2.5 tons of liquid oil per capita is burned each year. Figuring out the physics behind combustion could give engineers insights into making engines and other devices more efficient. And that translates directly into lower costs and reduced pollution. "Combustion in general is the major methodology for converting the chemical energy in this fuel into useful thermal and mechanical energy," Dryer said. "Combustion is also a major contributor to air pollution, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons and particulates. In addition, carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is also produced by the combustion of hydrocarbons. "It is relatively easy to produce very highly efficient conversion of the chemical energy in these fuels to thermal or mechanical energy, particularly if there are no constraints with regards to emssions," he added. "It is much harder to optimize the conversion of thermal energy to useful mechanical energy particulary with the constraints of emissions. Minimized emissions and best miles per gallon, if you will, require us to carefully control and tailor the combution process." This can only be done today with sophisticated computational tools to design experiments to further explore the phenomenon. Two experiments aboard Columbia directly address these sorts of issues. "What have we learned? Theories over the last 40 years or so in combustion have predicted a number of effects qualitatively," Dryer said. "The current microgravity experiments have given us a real opportunity to quantitatively observe those theoretical predictions, they provide data to develop very sophisticated models. The pieces of those models, then, can be fed into design codes for things such as engines and engine combustion and can help us improve the efficiency and emissions from those devices." For example, theory held that a small fuel droplet would go through three regimes during combustion. One, a quasi steady state, is frequently studied on the ground. In this regime, Dryer said, the square of the droplet and flame diameters decreases with time in a linear fashion. The flame extinguishes itself when the droplet becomes sufficiently small, leaving a trace liquid residue behind. Experiments aboard Columbia document that regime in great detail and provide evidence for two other regimes predicted by theory but never before observed. "In one of them, the flame will decrease and the droplet will actually disappear before the flame structure extinguishes," Dryer said. "In the last regime, we will find that the extinction of the droplet is actually defined by radiative loss from the flame. A very large droplet will be formed, burned and then extinguished with much of the mass remaining." Another surprising result involves what happens when two small fuel drops burn in close proximity. It turns out the flame balls initially move away from each other and then approach, although the mechanism is not yet clear. The phenomenon has been dubbed the "Thomas Twin Effect" after astronaut Donald Thomas, who helped operate the experiments in space. ==================================================================== Shuttle reflight off to smooth start (07/02/97) The second flight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission is off to a smooth start as the shuttle Columbia's astronauts complete activation of a smorgasbord of experiments in materials science, fluid physics, combustion research and protein crystal growth. Jeff Bantle, a mission operations representative at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said Columbia is operating smoothly and "in general, the payload activities have been going very well and they're off to a running start. As far as anomalies, I really don't have anything to tell you." With Columbia humming along like a fine watch, the payload team was wrapping up initial activation of the major experiment facilities aboard Columbia's Spacelab research module, clearing the way for science operations to commence in earnest. The first combustion experiment, designed to study the formation of soot, began shortly after 3:30 p.m. "This experiment is an attempt to study how soot forms without the influence of gravity," said mission scientist Michael Robinson. "Gravity basically disturbs the flame and messes up this process in one gravity. So the way to study the basic phenomenon is to eliminate those type of influences." Protein crystal growth experiments are up and running, as is on-board plant growth research There are no technical problems of any significance and a morning status report from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said the flight so far has been marked "by a lack of interesting events - which is good." "We've had a reasonably quiet start," said Patton Downey, the mission scientist at Marshall. He described the initial activation of Spacelab and the many experiments on board as generally "nominal," which is NASA-speak for "as expected." "The science teams are indeed very excited to be flying again," said mission manager Teresa Vanhooser. "We've just finished activation on most of them and we're just beginning science on most of them." Added Robinson: "In general everythning's where it should be and we're excited about pressing on and bringing these experiments to a definitive conclusion." Around dawn today, astronaut Donald Thomas reported he was able to see the crippled Mir space station as the outpost sailed about 60-nautical miles above Columbia. The station was illuminated by the sun while the shuttle orbited below in darkness. ==================================================================== Shuttle Columbia blasts off on first ever reflight (07/01/97) The shuttle Columbia rocketed into orbit today after a 12-minute delay to kick off a planned 16-day science mission, giving the five-man two-woman crew a second shot at completing a flight cut short in April by trouble with an electrical generator. Forecasters Monday predicted a 90 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms that would delay blastoff, prompting NASA managers to move Columbia's takeoff time up 47 minutes from 2:37 p.m. to 1:50 p.m. As it turned out, the weather cooperated and after a 12-minute delay to check out a rain shower to the northwest, the shuttle was cleared for blastoff. Just for the record, at 2:37 p.m. conditions also appeared favorable for launch, validating NASA's philosophy of pressing ahead even when the forecast is not particularly positive. "The space shuttle program is extremely happy to have Columbia back in orbit this afternoon," said Loren Shriver, chairman of NASA's mission management team. "It's especially gratifying to me to see this happen on a 90 percent no-go day. ... The weather depiction we looked at seemed to indicate throughout most of the day that the general path of the weather system was from northwest to southeast and perhaps we lucked out by the heaviest part of the daily activity being farther inland and it kind of avoided us. "We're very glad to have Jim Halsell and the rest of his crew and Columbia back in orbit so they can finish the mission they got started on and had to cut short. I know the (scientists) are very much looking forward to a full amount of time on orbit. " Columbia put on a spectacular show for area residents and tourists as it roared away atop a 600-foot jet of white-hot exhaust from its twin solid-fuel boosters. After main engine shutdown, pilot Susan Still reported a momentary pressure drop in APU-3, one of the shuttle's three hydraulic power systems, triggering three master alarms. Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, however, said the critical powerplant appeared to be operating normally, blaming the pressure transient on the normal operation of a specific valve. "It looks like Columbia's performing like a champ," astronaut Dom Gorie radioed from Houston later. "Roger, Houston, we copy," replied Still. "And thanks for the whole ascent team for getting us to a safe orbit." The goal of the 85th shuttle mission is to carry out 16-days of around-the-clock research in materials science, protein crystal growth and the behavior of fire in the absence of gravity. Other experiments in the Microgravity Science Laboratory include precise measurements of the microgravity environment aboard Columbia and tests of a space radiator that could be used on future spacecraft to dump unwanted heat overboard. While scientists were pleased with the initial results from mission STS-83 in April, saying data quality and hardware performance were both excellent, they lobbied for a second chance to run the experiments for full duration. "What we know going into the second mission is these experiments will work," said mission scientist Michael Robinson. "We know that our strategy is right, that if we can carry this to the end of the ballgame, if you will, we can get a victory. We've got to go back and finish the work. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. It's time to put on the hardhat, roll up the sleeves, get back in there and do what needs to be done to bring it to a definitive conclusion. We're not there yet. We've only started." The 33 experiments on board Columbia cover "the entire spectrum of the sorts of experiments we do on the shuttle these days and looking forward to space station, the same things we'll be doing in the future," payload commander Janice Voss said before the April flight. Many of the experiments will be operated remotely by scientists in Japan and at multiple sites in the United States using an innovative television system that can send down video from multiple experiment facilities using a single KU-band signal. The 85th shuttle mission is "kind of a bridge to space station," said flight engineer Michael Gernhardt. "This flight ... will be more like a 10-kilometer race to get warmed up for the space station marathons that are coming right around the corner." NASA spent around $450 million to launch Columbia in April, along with $133.6 million for the Spacelab microgravity experiments and data analysis. For the second flight, the incremental costs were much less: An additional $8.6 million for payload-related expenses and about $55 million for shuttle processing, according to NASA officials. "Our approach has been to treat this flight as a launch delay," said lead flight director Rob Kelso. "The flight crew is exactly the same, the flight directors are all the same and the flight control team is almost identical. ... "It's a mirror image flight in many respects." To collect as much data as possible, crew will work around the clock in two 12-hour shifts for the duration of the flight. What amounts to the overnight shift will be made up of commander James Halsell, Still, astronaut Donald Thomas and guest researcher Gregory Linteris. All four members of the so-called "red team" planned to go to bed just three-and-a-half hours after takeoff. They will get up for their first full day in space about seven hours later. Activating the Spacelab module and getting the mission's initial experiments underway will fall to the day shift, or "blue team:" Voss, flight engineer Gernhardt and guest researcher Roger Crouch, chief scientist of NASA's Microgravity Space and Applications Division. Crouch, Linteris and Still, the second woman to pilot a space shuttle, are space rookies while their crewmates all have previous flight experience. All but Halsell and Still hold doctorates. "This is a once-in-a-career opportunity, to have the chance to come back from a flight, turn quickly and do it again," Halsell said before launch. "There are always a few things you can change to do it a little bit better the second time around, but no flight crew has ever had that opportunity. Now we do. This is just a fantastic, marvelous, once-in-a-career opportunity." ==================================================================== Shuttle crew returns for second flight (filed 06/28/97) After a record 84-day turnaround, the crew of the shuttle Columbia flew back to the Kennedy Space Center today for launch Tuesday on a 16-day science mission that was aborted in April after just four days because of electrical problems. The countdown, which began at 3 p.m., is timed to end at 2:37 p.m. Tuesday with liftoff of the 85th shuttle mission. "I was talking to one of our capcoms, Bill McArthur, a few ago and he said this whole reflight business is making lemonade out of lemons. That's kind of the way we feel about it," said Columbia commander James Halsell. "We have the opportunity to refly a flight that had to come home early and it's just worked out magnificently. The people here at the Cape, I mean as soon as our wheels were stopped, they were working very hard from that point on to make a record-breaking turnaround on Columbia. They've done that. They've met all the challenges and fixed all the problems. "Meanwhile, the scientific investigators had a chance to look at their data results we got for them on 83 and we're going to change some of our procedures a little bit, a few of our samples and maybe take advantage of this reflight in the sense that we'll be able to get even better science, better data for them than we would have the first time around. So it's a great opportunity. Our hats are off to the people at the cape for making this whole thing possible." Columbia's flight originally was known as mission STS-83. The reflight is known as STS-94 and the mission flight plan remains identical to the original. The only significant items that have changed for the reflight are the launch time - it's moved from 2:01 p.m. to 2:37 p.m. - main engines, boosters, external tank, mobile launch platform and a few other minor items. Halsell and company blasted off on mission STS-83 at 2:20:32 p.m. on April 4. The flight was scheduled to last 16 days, but it was cut short after just four days because of concern about a slight performance degradation in fuel cell No. 2. The shuttle is equipped with three $5 million fuel cells that combine explosive hydrogen and oxygen in a sort of reverse electrolysis to produce the vehicle's electrical power and the crew's drinking water. Each powerplant is made up of 96 cells arranged in three so-called substacks made up of 32 cells each. The performance of a fuel cell is measured by comparing the output of half a substack's cells with the other half. Fuel cell No. 2 generated somewhat unusual readings before launch April 4, but it appeared to straighten out after being purged to clear presumed contaminants. Shortly after launch, however, flight controllers noticed a slight discrepancy between the cells making up the third substack. As the mission progressed, the mismatch increased, approaching NASA's redline of 300 millivolts. Engineers had to assume a worst-case failure, that is, that the mismatch was the result of problems with a single cell in the third substack. Should a cell fail outright, hydrogen and oxygen could mix, causing a fire or even an explosion. As a result, the mission was terminated in accordance with long-standing flight rules. Post-flight testing, however, showed fuel cell No. 2's performance degradation was spread across many cells, not just one, and that Columbia could have flown a full-duration mission with no problems. In any case, fuel cell No. 2 was replaced and NASA's flight rules were modified to prevent a launch if similar pre-flight readings are observed. ==================================================================== Shuttle astronauts return to Earth (filed 04/08/97) The crippled space shuttle Columbia glided back to Earth today, cutting short a planned 16-day science mission because of problems with one of the orbiter's three electrical generators. NASA managers are studying the possibility of re-launching the shuttle, its crew and its star-crossed payload as early as July 2 to complete the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission. "We're ready to go fly," commander James Halsell said after touchdown. "If it were up to me, I'd like to give the guys a week or two off to let them decompress from this flight and then we'll come back and start ramping up again for the next flight, if in fact the reflight is approved by management. I think we should make it clear that this is still under study by everybody, it's not a done deal yet. But certainly this crew is ready to support with a relatively minor amount of additional training." From a shuttle program standopoint, a July reflight would "require a robust effort," said Tommy Holloway, the shuttle program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "We expect that for this mission, we will be able to reduce the (ground processing) requirements somewhat to enable us to turn around sooner." But he added, "there are a host of things we have to evaluate in the next several days to determine if indeed we can process and be ready to go by the first part of July. But the team is very excited .. about doing it." If the shuttle team is excited, the science team is ecstatic. "From a payloads standpoint, we could be ready," said mission scientist Michael Robinson. "All the science teams say they could be ready. It's going to be tight, but again, the majority of the actual (experiment) samples were not processed so they don't have to be turned around. There would be no facility upgrades or changes. There's no need to." Flying upside down and backward over the southern Indian Ocean, Halsell and pilot Susan Still fired the Columbia's twin braking rockets at 1:30:45 p.m. for three minutes and 25 seconds, slowing the shuttle by 325 feet per second, just enough to drop out of orbit. One hour later, Halsell guided the shuttle through moderate crosswinds to a smooth landing at 2:33:16 p.m. Columbia's five-man two-woman crew had hoped to spend 16 days in space carrying out some 33 experiments making up the Microgravity Science Laboratory, research similar to what is expected in the space station era. But one of Columbia's three electricity producing fuel cells malfunctioned shortly after launch and on Sunday, mission managers ordered the astronauts to head for home. Still loaded with 14 days worth of liquid hydroen and liquid oxygen, Columbia tipped the scales at a record 236,000 pounds at touchdown. But Halsell had no apparent problems guided the veteran spaceplane to a smooth landing on runway 33. Engineers plan to remove fuel cell No. 2 this weekend and ship it back to the vendor for detailed tests and analysis to figure out what went wrong. Halsell, Still, Michael Gernhardt, Donald Thomas, Janice Voss, Roger Crouch and Gregory Linteris, meanwhile, planned to fly back to Houston for debriefings and to await word on possible reflight options. A decision was expected by the end of this week or early next at the latest. From a technical standpoint, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center believe Columbia and its payload can be readied for launch as early as July 2. The science community also believes it can support a quick turnaround. It remains to be seen, however, whether the shuttle program and the microgravity research office at the Marshall Space Flight Center can come up with the money to cover the incremental costs of a second launch. NASA spends about $500 million per shuttle flight, but most of that went into tests, processing, training, mission planning, simulations and other activities that would not have to be repeated. Holloway said it would only cost his office between $50 million and $60 million or so for a reflight. Joel Kearns, director of the microgravity research office at Marshall, sponsor of the MSL-1 payload, said he did not yet have a reliable cost estimate. But he said "it's certainly less than half of the number Tommy was talking about and potentially a lot less than that." In fact, it would be cheaper in the long run for NASA to relaunch Columbia as soon as possible. Payload costs for a July flight, Kearns said, could be covered by already budgeted reserve funds. A more significant delay probably would require additional funding. "We're off working what the budget would be to do this," he said. "Bluntly, the faster we can do it, the cheaper it is." There are other advantages to a reflight as well. "I think it would be a very good test case of a capability we should have in place for the station, an ability to be able to bring a payload back, an element of the station back for whatever reason, either for something like this or perhaps the interface did not work as we expected it to at the station, and be able to turn it around in as reasonable time as practical," Holloway said. And for the mission scientists, lessons learned during Columbia's initial flight might pay off in more efficient operations during the second. "In some ways, this could work out to make it a more meaningful flight in the long run," said guest astronaut Roger Crouch. "But certainly, this one was a bummer." NASA plans to launch the shuttle Atlantis May 15 on a high-priority flight to the Russian Mir space station. A reflight for Columbia in early July would have a ripple effect on subsequent flights, but the overall impact would be relatively minor. Assuming Columbia does, in fact, take off July 2, a flight currently planned for late July would slip into early August, a September flight to Mir would move into October and a science mission on tap later that month would slip into late November. NASA had planned to launch the first U.S. space station mission on Dec. 4, but the agency is expected to delay that mission for seven months, until July 1998, because of problems in Russia readying a key station module for flight. Despite the disappointment of Columbia's shortened mission, NASA flight controllers, at least, have kept their sense of humor. In the Monday "execute package" of instructions, technical data and experiment summaries faxed up to Columbia from mission control, the cover page included the following "top 10" list: TOP TEN REASONS WHY WE ARE REALLY COMING HOME EARLY 10. Crew forgot to do their taxes before they left 09. 16-day mission - April Fool's! 08. Lead FAO (flight activities officer) didn't want to work flight anyway 07. Hale-Bopp Comet aliens got way too close for comfort 06. NASA TV ratings were low 05. OJ Simpson trial over and CNN needed something to cover 04. Crew left stove on back in Houston 03. Gotta be home to see "Friends" on Thursday 02. Energizer Bunny wasn't manifested 01. Four words: OUT OF COLUMBIAN COFFEE ==================================================================== Shuttle astronauts gear up for landing (filed 04/07/97) The Columbia astronauts tested the shuttle re-entry systems today, conserved power and raced the clock to complete as much orbital research as possible before packing up for landing Tuesday to close out an aborted four-day mission. If all goes well, Columbia will glide to a touchdown on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center one hour later, at 2:33:16 p.m., to wrap up a 1.4-million-mile-voyage spanning 63 complete orbits since blastoff Friday. The astronauts had hoped to remain in orbit for a full 16 days to carry out 33 Microgravity Science Laboratory experiments. But the shutdown of fuel cell No. 2 Sunday forced mission managers to declare a minimum duration flight, or MDF, to protect against a subsequent failure. It was only the third time in shuttle history that a malfunction in orbit forced flight controllers to terminate a mission. Patrick Simpkins, an engineer with the division of fluid systems at the Kennedy Space Center, said the fuel cell in question, serial number 119, has flown in space four times: On missions STS-75, 78, 80 and 83. It has never shown any indications of trouble prior to Columbia's countdown. At that time, roughly 12 hours before launch and before it had even been turned on, fuel cell 2 exhibited a 500 millivolt discrepancy between two sets of internal cells. Simpkins said similar readings were observed during two flights of the shuttle Atlantis. In that case, after the fuel cell was turned on and began carrying its normal load, the discrepancy leveled off at a much lower value, well withing safety guidelines. With that experience behind them, engineers pressed ahead with Columbia's countdown and sure enough, fuel cell 2's readings dropped to single digits. After launch, however, the discrepancy began increasing again and the fuel cell was shut down before NASA"s 300 millivolt redline could be reached. Because of the problem with Columbia's fuel cell, serial number 119, the Atlantis fuel cell that showed a similar pre-launch signature will be removed prior to that shuttle's launch May 15 to the Mir space station and subjected to a battery of tests by the builder, International Fuel Cells. "It's not so much that we think 116 is bad," Simpkins said. "It's that we think 116 shows a similar enough signature that we might be able to gather some data. When we shut down fuel cell 2 on (Columbia) on orbit, we probably disturbed the integrity of the system enough that we won't be able to repeat the failure. Or if we do find a failure, we won't know if it's attached to what we observed. So we're going to pull 116 on (Atlantis), send it back to the vendor and run some tests. We'll probably put it through a flight profile and see how it behaves." As for Columbia's mission, Joel Kearns, manager of NASA's microgravity research program office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, said he has formally asked the shuttle program for a reflight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory. "Because of the flawless functioning of this operations team, the great success of our scientific apparatus and our demonstration of our space station capability, yesterday I took the step ... to request a reflight of this MSL-1 mission in the future," he said. "The disposition of that request by NASA headquarters will require assessment by all the participating organizations, it will take some time. But I have no doubt because of the great success shown in our limited opportunity to acquire research data in the past few days that in the future we will bring these investigations to a successful conclusion." During a news conference from space today, commander James Halsell summed up the feelings of his crewmates, saying "I think the message we want to leave everybody with from here on board Columbia is in the short time we've been here, thanks to the hard work of the payload people on board Columbia plus in Huntsville, we've been able to put together a good science program. We're going to bring back some meaningful science in the short time we have been here. "It's true everybody is disappointed that we are going to have to come home early, not only the crew but the investigators and the researchers whose science we're up here to accomplish. But still, I think we packed a lot into a short period of time." Halsell said the astronauts never felt they were in any danger due to the fuel cell problem. But he said they didn't take it lightly, either. "This is one of the original electric fly-by-wire airplanes, that is, we depend upon electricity for this airplane to fly," he said. "Therefore, when you lose one third of your electrical producing capacity you have to consider that. So as a result, after we had to safe fuel cell two, we had a little pow-wow here on the flight deck and we made sure we understood all the emergency procedures as modified by the fact that fuel cell two had been shut down. So I don't want to convey the opinion that we thought we were in imminent danger, certainly not. We felt that the situation was well in hand. On the other hand, we want to be prepared for the next possible failure and we feel like that's where we're at right now." As for whether NASA should have held up Columbia's flight to replace fuel cell No. 2 after signs of trouble before liftoff, Halsell said: "Hindsight's always going to be 20-20. But this is a situation where with the best information everybody had in hand at the time, the decision was made, and I believe it was a correct one at the time, to go ahead and launch." Astronaut Donald Thomas said his crewmates expressed "shock and disbelief" when they were informed the mission would be cut short. "We've been training for this mission for over a year and a half or so, working hard on the science," he said. "The people on the ground at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the principal investigators all across the country and around the world, they've been working on this mission even longer. So it was a big disappointment to end the mission. But we've been working as hard as we can, working double time up here, trying to make up for what we're losing by shortening the mission." ==================================================================== NASA orders shuttle Columbia home early (filed 4/6/97) The Columbia astronauts, thwarted by a potentially explosive problem with one of the shuttle's electrical generators, aborted a planned 16-day science mission today and prepared for a disappointing early return to Earth Tuesday to close out an abbreviated four-day flight. NASA mission management team ordered the crew home after engineers were unable to determine exactly what was causing fuel cell No. 2 to misbehave in a subtle fashion. "The consensus is they just do not understand the behavior of fuel cell two, even though your folks' efforts have done a good job towards stabilizing the problem," astronaut Chris Hadfield radioed from mission control. "It's significantly out of family. And so we'll shorten the mission." "That's certainly disappointing, but we know you guys put your best effort forward and you're doing the right thing," said commander James Halsell. "We appreciate all the work that's gone into that. I imagine between now and (landing) we'll keep marching forward with as much science as we can." "Exactly right, you can continue with the nominal timeline for now for completing as much science as possible." Science operations continued into the night as the astronauts began making preparations to land, including research to learn more about how fires behave in weightlessness. Fuel cell No. 2 was "safed" shut down and the crew began conserving electricity to ease the load on Columbia's two remaining fuel cells. Halsell and pilot Susan Still plan to test the shuttle's re-entry systems Monday to make sure the orbiter is ready for its fiery glide back to Florida. Halsell, Still, Donald Thomas and guest researcher Roger Crouch also plan to hold a news conference at 9:31 a.m. to discuss their unexpected early return. Columbia's crew now plans to land Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:35 p.m. to close out a 63-orbit mission, only the third in shuttle history cut short by a malfunction in orbit. The forecast is favorable. But a fuel cell failure is grounds for declaration of a minimum duration flight, or MDF, which requires a shuttle crew to land as soon as reasonably possible to protect against a second failure. As a result, Columbia will land one way or the other Tuesday, at either Kennedy or Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to bring the 83rd shuttle flight to a close. "In general, the rules would say come home to a good CONUS (continental U.S.), Edwards or KSC, landing site as soon as reasonable," said Jeff Bantle, a mission operations representative at the Johnson Space Center. "An Edwards landing on Tuesday would make total sense if that was the only site available. In all likelihood, unless there were some other mitigating circumstances, I would assume that would be the case if it unfolded that way." The decision to abort the flight was a major disappointment for the crew and for scores of scientists and engineers who began planning the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission more than three years ago. Of 33 planned experiments in materials science, fluid physics, protein crystal growth and combustion research, only a relative handful of runs were completed. "You hang your head for a little bit, you're disappointed, then you realize hey, you've still got a day or so in which you can get some work done," said mission scientist Michael Robinson. "We haven't had time to really stop and be disappointed. But obviously, when you're expecting a 16-day mission and you put a lot of time and effort into it, in your heart there's some disappointment. These experiments are important to us and we want to see them run. Hopefully, they will run in the future and we're hanging onto that glimmer of hope there." The shuttle is equipped with three $5 million fuel cells that combine explosive hydrogen and oxygen in a sort of reverse electrolysis to produce the vehicle's electrical power and the crew's drinking water. Each powerplant is made up of 96 cells arranged in three so-called substacks made up of 32 cells each. The performance of a fuel cell is measured by comparing the output of half a substack's cells with the other half. Fuel cell No. 2 acted up before launch Friday, but it appeared to straighten out after being purged to clear presumed contaminants. Shortly after launch, however, flight controllers noticed a slight discrepancy between the cells making up the third substack. As the mission progressed, the mismatch increased, approaching NASA's redline of 300 millivolts. Bantle said the readings indicated problems with a single cell. "We've been continuing to monitor the fuel cell's performance," Bantle said at a Sunday morning news briefing. "It continues to degrade as we watch it. We rearranged our bus tie to lower the load on that fuel cell. We did expect that in all likelihood the degradation would continue, but that would give us a little more time to watch it and confirm the trend is as we expected. We've pretty much confirmed that here in the last six to eight to 10 hours." He said each individual cell ideally puts out about 0.9 volts. If the voltage in a cell drops, excess heat is generated. "The early, limited test data we have says if that drops on the order of three tenths of a volt, from nine tenths of a volt to like six tenths of a volt, it runs significantly hot enough you may have concern the membranes that separate the H2 and the O2 could be burned through and compromised," he said. "That's considered a crossover of our two gases and of course, that's hydrogen and oxygen, and when they mix that's not a nice sight. By terminating the operation here, we can preclude getting close to that kind of a situation." Shuttle program director Tommy Holloway explained it like this: "If one were foolish enough to (run the fuel cell) long enough, we could potentially have a breakthrough in the system and we'd be mixing oxygen and hydrogen, that would result in a fire and I suppose potentially, if you let it go long enough, an explosion. But we're not going to come to close to that kind of scenario." Holloway said he did not consider the Tuesday landing an "emergency" return to Earth. Instead, he called the decision to shorten the mission "a prudent thing to do and we're off doing it in an orderly, methodical" manner. Asked if Columbia's five-man two-woman crew might get a second chance to fly the MSL-1 mission later, Holloway said it was too soon to say. But he didn't rule out the possibility. "Certainly, people have begun to talk about that," he said. "I'm sure in the next few days we'll be discussing the total manifest over the next 18 months and considering such questions. At this time, we don't have any definition of what that might be." ==================================================================== Fuel cell problem terminates mission (filed 04/05-06/97) Saturday afternoon status report (filed at 3:40 p.m. Saturday) The Columbia astronauts activated experiments today and worked to fix a data relay problem between a control computer and an experiment facility that will be used to study how fires behave in the weightlessness of space. Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, meanwhile, are closely monitoring one of the shuttle's three electricity producing fuel cells, which has exhibited a slight performance degradation since Columbia's blastoff Friday. Should the degradation worsen - and as of this writing it does not appear to be - the fuel cell would have to be shut down, which would force mission managers to order Columbia's five-man two-woman crew home early. "Because two fuel cells is about what it takes to do a comfortable entry, we would perform what we call an MDF, a minimum duration flight, and we would land early," said mission operations representative Jeff Bantle. "If it was past Monday and we lost a fuel cell, we would probably come home the next day or the next convenient opportunity." But Bantle said the degradation to date occurred over the first 12 to 18 hours of the flight and that it appears to be leveling off. As a result, flight controllers plan to monitor the powerplant over the next day or so and "I don't think there's anything that's going to happen fast here in the next 24 or 48 hours," Bantle added. "I think [Sunday] at this time we'll know a lot more," he said. "Hopefully, this fuel cell's performance will continue to stabilize and level off and we'll go the full two weeks. If not, we'll be prepared to go ahead and safe the fuel cell and come home if we need to." Any decision to shorten the mission, however, would be made at least 24 hours before landing to give the astronauts time to shut down their Spacelab systems and to ready the shuttle for re-entry. "In general, any 'come home' decisions you'd like to make on the order of 24 hours in advance, something like that minimum," Bantle said. The earliest landing opportunity for an MDF would be Monday. In that case, deorbit ignition would be scheduled for 3:03 p.m. EDT with landing on tap at 4:02 p.m. But that appears to be a very remote possibility at this point. The space shuttle uses three fuel cells located below the payload bay floor to generate electricity by combining liquid hydrogen and oxygen in a sort of reverse electrolysis. A by-product of the reaction is the crew's drinking water. Each fuel cell is divided into three so-called substacks and each substack contains 32 cells. Flight controllers compare the performance of each half of each substack to determine the fuel cell's overall health. The problem with fuel cell No. 2 is in the third substack. "There's always a difference between the two halves of the substack, but we're noticing a changing difference," Bantle said. "Actually, that changing difference has leveled off a lot so actually the degradation was greater the first 12 hours of the mission." The cumulative change amounts to a loss of about 200 millivolts. "At the rate we're seeing now, there may be no problem, it may level off," Bantle said. "If it does increase again, and we get to a roughly 300 millivolt change, then we would shut down and safe that fuel cell. That's what our rules say. The concern is degradation in a single cell. If it degrades enough, rather than getting power out from that cell you would have power input into that cell, you could actually have crossover and localized heating, exchange of hydrogen and oxygen within the cell and you could even have a localized fire. That's the very worst case. "That's why we have flight rules that are very conservative to try to avoid and try to shut down and safe a fuel cell before you would ever get to that point," he added. "So that 300 millivolt number is not an indication an entire cell has been lost, it's an indication one is degraded enough that we would like to shut down and safe the fuel cell." In that case, there would not be enough power to do much, if any, Spacelab research and the crew would prepare for an early return to Earth. While scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center are prioritizing their experiments in case an MDF is, in fact, ordered, there is not much they would be able to do if a fuel cell is shut down. "We're planning for a 16-day mission," said mission scientist Michael Robinson. "But at the same time, it's better to be safe than sorry so we've started some planning." If the flight ultimately is shortened, mission managers likely would lobby for a second flight. "We would be very anxious to fly again, obviously," Robinson said. "We have a 16-day mission that's full of science and we'd like to do it all. For the record, only two MDFs have been carried out in the 83-flight history of the shuttle program. In November 1981, the second shuttle flight was cut short by a fuel cell failure and in November 1991, mission STS-44 ended three days early due to the failure of a navigation device. Aboard Columbia, meanwhile, the red shift - commander James Halsell, pilot Susan Still, Donald Thomas and Gregory Linteris - went off duty at 1:21 p.m. today. The blue shift - payload commander Janice Voss, Michael Gernhardt, Roger Crouch - will work until 2:21 a.m. Sunday. For details on what the astronauts are doing at any given moment, check out the STS-83 current activity page. Detailed daily flight plan information also is available. Viewers following the mission on NASA television will notice the quality of the video images from Columbia is much less sharp than usual. This is because video compression technology is being used to enable multiple channels of experiment video to be downlinked at the same time. The resulting images are very grainy, but science is the name of the game and that's the way it will be for the remainder of this flight except during PAO or other special events. Sunday morning update (filed at 1:30 a.m. Sunday) The performance of fuel cell No. 2 aboard the shuttle Columbia continues to worsen, increasing the likelihood of an early end to the 83rd shuttle mission. Overnight, the astronauts were told to isolate the electrical generator from Columbia's other two powerplants in a bid to ease the load on the fuel cell. But Jeff Bantle, a mission operations manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said flight controllers are not optimistic that will reverse the trend and that fuel cell No. 2 likely will be shut down by 6 a.m. or so. NASA's mission management team meets at 9 a.m. Sunday and at that point, assuming the fuel cell is, in fact, shut down, Columbia's mission would be declared a minimum duration flight, or MDF, and the astronauts would be ordered to pack up and head for home Tuesday. "The trend of this fuel cell continues to not look good," Bantle said shortly before 1:30 a.m. "We probably have another four to five hours to watch it and look at it. If the trend continues the way it is, then we'd go ahead and safe this fuel cell and that would also include some small powerdowns of the payload because with two fuel cells we probably wouldn't be able to support quite the load that they're getting now. Then we'd start looking ahead to an MDF and an MDF right now would look like probably a Tuesday midday landing. ... Now if for some reason in the next four to five hours the trend does change, then we'll have some additional data to talk about. But at this point, if the trend continues probably in the next four to five hours we'll be shutting that fuel cell down." The degradation at present is on the order of 250 millivolts. It was 200 millivolts Saturday afternoon and NASA's flight rules call for the fuel cell to be shut down if the degradation reaches 300 millivolts. Bantle said flight controllers have never seen a fuel cell behave in this manner before and "there's really very limited data in the regime where this fuel cell is currently operating." "That's one of the things why we really don't want to push these limits," he said. "We take the fuel cells ... very seriously." A news conference with shuttle program director Tommy Holloway is tentatively planned for 10 a.m., after the mission management team meeting. Assuming an MDF is ordered, the astronauts will begin wrapping up their science operations and gearing up to return home. The crew probably will shoot for a Tuesday landing instead of heading back Monday because commander Jim Halsell and pilot Susan Still are on the overnight shift and they would need time to test Columbia's re-entry systems and carry out other routine pre-landing checks. Sunday morning update (filed at 7:45 a.m. Sunday) Fuel cell No. 2's performance appears to have stabilized somewhat after it was isolated and allowed to run on its own early today at a lower power level. "Since doing that, the fuel cell has stabilized somewhat and has remained in the same state now for several hours," said NASA mission control commentator Ed Campion. "So with that having occurred, flight controllers decided to not take any further action in terms of powering down orbiter systems. We're just going to continue to watch the performance of the fuel cell. "A lot of contingency planning activities were started late last night when the negative trend was seen in the fuel cell," he said. "Those contingency plan activities will continue just in case they are needed but right now, at least for the time being, there's at least a somewhat more positive feeling the fuel cell is operating in a stable manner and we're just going to continue to evaluate its performance." Fuel cell 2 originally was tied in with fuel cell 3 to provide power to electrical buses A and C, which supply Spacelab and orbiter systems. Buses A and C are now tied to fuel cells 1 and 3, leaving fuel cell 2 driving main bus B. The electrical load on the fuel cell is somewhat less in this configuration. Early today, flight controllers were convinced they would have to shut the fuel cell down around 6 a.m. or so, which would have forced the crew to terminate science operations and to gear up for a Tuesday landing. That may still be the case, but there are no immediate plans to shut the powerplant down. Complicating the picture, it's not yet clear whether the crew can carry out all of its Spacelab experiments with the fuel cells in their current configuration. NASA's mission management team meets at 9 a.m. to discuss the issue in detail and a news conference is on tap at 10 a.m. Will advise. In the meantime, the Columbia astronauts are pressing ahead with their normal experiment schedule. ==================================================================== Shuttle Columbia blasts off on 16-day mission (filed 04/04/97) The veteran shuttle Columbia, carrying a seven-member crew and a billion-dollar Spacelab research module, rocketed away from launch pad 39A at 2:20:32 p.m. today, kicking off an around-the-clock 16-day microgravity science mission. "This is a great, sunny Florida afternoon here on the Space Coast," said Loren Shriver, shuttle operations manager. "We're happy to have this one off. ... The ascent went very well." Running one day late because of work to insulate water coolant pipes in the shuttle's cargo bay, Columbia's liftoff today was held up 20 minutes by work to close the orbiter's crew cabin hatch and because of last-minute concern about oxygen concentrations in the orbiter's fuselage and engine compartment. As it turned out, the oxygen levels were acceptable and Columbia was cleared for takeoff. "This was a great day for a launch," said launch director Jim Harrington. "The team really did a good job pulling us through some of these little problems we had." In many ways, the 83rd shuttle flight mirrors the sort of operations one can expect aboard NASA's planned international space station. Making its 13th and next-to-last flight, the $1 billion European-built Spacelab module mounted in Columbia's cargo bay is packed with more than two dozen experiments devoted to materials science, fluid physics, protein crystal growth and the behavior of fire in the absence of gravity. Other experiments in the Microgravity Science Laboratory include precise measurements of the low-gravity environment aboard Columbia and tests of a space radiator that could be used on future spacecraft to dump unwanted heat overboard. The 33 experiments on board cover "the entire spectrum of the sorts of experiments we do on the shuttle these days and looking forward to space station, the same things we'll be doing in the future," said payload commander Janice Voss. Many of the experiments will be operated remotely by scientists in Japan and at multiple sites in the United States using an innovative television system that can send down video from multiple experiment facilities using a single KU-band signal. The 83rd shuttle mission is "kind of a bridge to space station," said astronaut Michael Gernhardt. "This flight ... will be more like a 10-kilometer race to get warmed up for the space station marathons that are coming right around the corner." Columbia was launched into a 160 nautical-mile circular orbit tilted 28.5 degrees to the equator. To collect as much data as possible, the shuttle's five-man two-woman crew will work around the clock in two 12-hour shifts for the duration of the flight. What amounts to the overnight shift will be made up of commander James Halsell, pilot Susan Still, astronaut Donald Thomas and guest researcher Gregory Linteris. All four members of the so-called "red team" planned to go to bed just three-and-a-half hours after takeoff. They will get up for their first full day in space about seven hours later. Activating the Spacelab module and getting the mission's initial experiments underway will fall to the day shift, or "blue team:" Voss, flight engineer Gernhardt and guest researcher Roger Crouch, chief scientist of NASA's Microgravity Space and Applications Division. Crouch, Linteris and Still, the second woman to pilot a space shuttle, are space rookies while their crewmates all have previous flight experience. All but Halsell and Still hold doctorates. ==================================================================== Shuttle coolant lines insulated (filed 04/03/97) Rocket engineers have completed last-minute work in the shuttle Columbia's payload bay and NASA managers have cleared the orbiter's five-man two-woman crew for blastoff Friday at 2 p.m. on a 16-day science mission. Liftoff will come one day late because of unplanned work to insulate critical water coolant pipes in Columbia's cargo hold. "The launch count is going well, the non-standard work is behind us, the payload bay is closed out and we're proceeding with the count," said Bob Sieck, launch integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "It's been a busy flow, a lot of work on the weekends, a lot of work in the launch count, but that's all behind us now. This mission is important to us from a processing standpoint. This is a busy year. We have four flights in the next six months, one on each orbiter in the fleet. There's a lot of work to do." Forecasters call for near ideal conditions at launch time Friday, with only a 10 percent chance of a weather-related delay during Columbia's two-and-a-half-hour takeoff period. The odds drop to 70 percent "go" for a Saturday launch and to just 30 percent Sunday due to passage of a cold front through the area. Mission managers initially held open the option of launching Columbia about one hour earlier than planned, around 1:06 p.m. Friday, because of concern about problems with one of two microwave landing systems at an emergency runway in Banjul, The Gambia. Banjul's municipal airport is the designated trans-Atlantic abort site where Columbia's crew would have to land in the event of major problems midway through the climb to orbit. At 2 p.m. in Florida it's nighttime in Banjul and NASA flight rules require two operational microwave systems for night TAL landings. By moving launch up one hour, a TAL would occur in daylight when only one microwave system would be required. But Loren Shriver, chairman of NASA's mission management team, said engineers decided to launch Columbia at 2 p.m. as planned even if one of the two microwave systems is not fully operational. But to be safe, more stringent weather criteria have been imposed: Clear skies from 15,000 feet down. In the meantime, engineers say the suspect microwave system might work just fine. The problem is delamination on the antenna, which seems to affect the quality of the signal at high angles. "The space shuttle program is happy to be on track again," Shriver said. "The problems that came up ... I think have all been dealt with. We're looking forward to tomorrow. It promises to be a pretty nice spring afternoon for our operation. So we're looking forward to getting STS-83 off and running." Columbia's seven-member crew plans to work around the clock in two 12-hour shifts to collect as much data as possible during the 16-day Microgravity Science Laboratory. The goal of the flight, which features contributions from 23 nations, is to study materials science, how materials freeze and melt, the physics of fires in space and protein crystal growth experiments that could help researchers on Earth design new drugs. On other topics, Shriver said NASA now plans to launch the shuttle Endeavour in September in place of the Atlantis, which will be shipped to Palmdale, Calif., in July for an overhaul and space station upgrades. He said under that schedule, Endeavour likely would not be available for launch in December on what was to be the first U.S. space station assembly mission. Top NASA managers plan a news briefing next week to discuss the space station program and to presumably announce a seven-month delay in the start of assembly operations. ==================================================================== Shuttle coolant lines insulated (filed 04/02/97) Engineers opened the shuttle Columbia's cargo bay early today to insulate four mysteriously bare coolant lines running across the forward bulkhead of the orbiter's cargo bay. Concerned the lines might freeze up during Columbia's upcoming 16-day flight, NASA managers late Tuesday decided to delay launch one day, from Thursday to Friday, in order to properly insulate the lines. Bob Sieck, shuttle integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center, said it appears Columbia has flown for years without any insulation on the lines in question. While it might have been safe to launch Columbia as is, mission requirements will require the shuttle to fly in an orientation that will subject the lines to low temperatures for the duration of the 16-day flight. "From the standpoint of flight safety and meeting the mission requirements, given enough time to work it, I think we would have gotten comfortable with flying as is," Sieck said at a news briefing. "But that probably wouldn't have occurred until today or tomorrow and the prudent thing to do ... was just go in and take care of the concern with these blankets." Columbia's launch time Friday is a bit up in the air. The "official" launch time is 2 p.m., but that would require a nighttime landing at Banjul, The Gambia, in the event of a problem that might trigger a trans-Atlantic abort. For night TALs, the landing site must be equipped with two microwave guidance systems. One of the microwave antennas at Banjul appears to be damaged, which could degrade the system's performance. By moving launch up to 1:06 p.m. Friday, a TAL would occur in daylight, when only one microwave system would be required. On the other hand, moving up the launch one hour would eliminate one of two daylight Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., landing opportunities each day at the end of Columbia's mission. Will advise when a launch time decision is made... In the meantime, the forecast for Friday, originally 70 percent "go," has improved to 90 percent go. The outlook for Saturday drops to 70 percent go and to just 30 percent on Sunday. The coolant loop issue does not appear to be a particularly serious problem, but it does beg the question of how it happened in the first place. The shuttle is equipped with two redundant water coolant loops to carry heat away from crew cabin electronic systems. Should one system fail in flight, NASA rules require a shuttle crew to land ASAP at the next available U.S. runway. Should both systems fail, a crew would have to land immediately, whether at a U.S. site or a runway on foreign soil. The shuttle is an "all electric" flying machine and without cooling, key systems would fail in short order. Each fully redundant water coolant loop uses stainless steel quarter inch lines. Along with servicing electronic gear in avionics bays located inside the crew cabin, these lines also penetrate the forward payload bay bulkhead and run through a "cold plate" used to carry heat away from the payload bay floodlight between the two aft crew cabin windows. Last year, engineers discovered signs of ice damage in the cargo bay cold plate aboard the shuttle Discovery. An investigation was launched to study the issue in more detail. Using photographs taken before Columbia's cargo bay doors were closed for flight, engineers discovered four three-foot sections of the coolant lines were not insulated as expected (one line from each loop running toward the cold plate and one line from each returning). Columbia's launch was delayed one day to properly insulate the lines to prevent any chance of a freezeup. Why it took engineers this long to check the lines in question remains unclear. Sieck said it appeared the lines aboard Columbia originally were insulated and then at some point early in the program, the insulation was removed. It is not yet clear whether this was the result of an engineering decision or an oversight somewhere along the line. Sieck said engineers were investigating the issue to fully resolve the matter. ==================================================================== Shuttle launch delayed one day (filed 04/01/97) NASA managers late today delayed the launch of the shuttle Columbia from Thursday at 2:01 p.m. to Friday at 1:07 p.m. The launch window remains 90 minutes long and forecasters predict a 70 percent chance of acceptable weather throughout the launch period. The delay was ordered after engineers discovered water coolant lines servicing Columbia's Spacelab research module had not been wrapped with insulation. Because the shuttle will be flying in an orientation designed to shelter cargo bay systems from possible impacts by space debris, temperatures in the payload bay will be lower than normal during Columbia's 16-day flight. Agency managers meeting for a traditional launch-minus-two-day review today were concerned the water lines might freeze. As a result, they decided to delay launch one day to give engineers time to open Columbia's cargo bay doors to gain access to the coolant lines. The actual repair work is relatively straight forward and no problems are anticipated. Why this issue was not discovered until today is not yet clear. The launch time Friday is roughly one hour earlier than had been planned for Thursday. This is because the microwave landing system at the primary trans-Atlantic abort site in Banjul, The Gambia, is down and NASA managers want to ensure a daylight landing if an abort is ordered. By moving takeoff up to 1:07 p.m., Columbia's crew will find a well lighted runway if a TAL abort has to be selected for some reason. Engineers already were working two other technical issues, but they were considered minor and likely would have had no impact on launch in any case. One involved problems with one of the launch pad's two hazardous gas detection systems and the other involved the commander's head-up display. NASA test director Doug Lyons said earlier today only one "hazgas" system is required for launch and while the primary system had calibration problems, the backup was working just fine. As for the HUD, engineers say the display dims and brightens for no apparent reason. It's considered likely the unit's electronics package will be replaced. This will have no impact on launch. ==================================================================== Shuttle Columbia set for launch (filed 04/01/97) Editor's Note... The following story was written for Space News. By WILLIAM HARWOOD Space News Correspondent CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - In another incremental step toward space station operations, the shuttle Columbia is set for launch April 3 on a 16-day flight marking the beginning of the end for NASA's scientifically productive Spacelab program. Making its 13th and next-to-last flight, the $1 billion European-built Spacelab module mounted in Columbia's cargo bay is packed with more than two dozen experiments devoted to materials science, protein crystal growth and the behavior of fire in the absence of gravity. Other experiments in the Microgravity Science Laboratory include precise measurements of the microgravity environment aboard Columbia and tests of a space radiator that could be used on future spacecraft to dump unwanted heat overboard. The 33 experiments on board cover "the entire spectrum of the sorts of experiments we do on the shuttle these days and looking forward to space station, the same things we'll be doing in the future," said payload commander Janice Voss. Many of the experiments will be operated remotely by scientists in Japan and at multiple sites in the United States using an innovative television system that can send down video from multiple experiment facilities using a single KU-band signal. The 83rd shuttle mission is "kind of a bridge to space station," said astronaut Michael Gernhardt. "This flight ... will be more like a 10-kilometer race to get warmed up for the space station marathons that are coming right around the corner." Making its 22nd flight, Columbia is scheduled for liftoff from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:01 p.m. on April 3. If all goes well, NASA's oldest shuttle will be placed in a 296-kilometer circular orbit tilted 28.5 degrees to the equator. To collect as much data as possible, the shuttle's five-man two-woman crew will work around the clock in two 12-hour shifts for the duration of the flight. Based on Columbia's launch time, what amounts to the overnight shift will be made up of commander James Halsell, pilot Susan Still, astronaut Donald Thomas and guest researcher Gregory Linteris. All four members of the so-called "red team" plan to go to bed just three-and-a-half hours after takeoff. They will get up for their first full day in space about seven hours later. Activating the Spacelab module and getting the mission's initial experiments underway will fall to the day shift, or "blue team:" Voss, flight engineer Gernhardt and guest researcher Roger Crouch, chief scientist of NASA's Microgravity Space and Applications Division. Crouch, Linteris and Still, the second woman to pilot a space shuttle, are space rookies while their crewmates all have previous flight experience. All but Halsell and Still hold doctorates. Columbia's flight marks the next-to-last planned use of a Spacelab module, the pressurized laboratory provided by the European Space Agency that first flew in 1983 during the ninth shuttle mission. "We've got two scheduled Spacelab flights remaining: This one, which is the last materials processing flight, and then a year from now is the Neurolab flight on [shuttle mission] STS-90," said lead flight director Rob Kelso. "That's currently the last scheduled Spacelab module flight." Helping complete the bridge between Spacelab and space station operations, Columbia's Spacelab module is equipped with a station-style experiment rack intended to streamline experiment installation, checkout and post-flight servicing. Unlike standard Spacelab racks that are virtually custom built for each flight, the new EXPRESS racks allow instruments and experiments to be installed and hooked up from the front by astronauts in orbit. Two experiments will be installed and operated in the EXPRESS rack during Columbia's mission: One to study the physics of materials as they make the transition from liquiud to solid and back; and one to study how plants adapt to weightlessness. Three protein crystal growth experiments will be carried out as part of an ongoing effort by NASA to help researchers develop more effective drugs by providing large crystals that can be more easily analyzed on Earth. Two Spacelab racks are devoted to combustion experiments using a facility called Combustion Module-1. Featuring a combustion chamber and seven cameras, the Combustion Module will provide the most detailed data yet on how flames propogate and generally behave in weightlessness. Some 19 materials science experiments are scheduled during Columbia's flight using a trio of major research facilities. Five experiments will be conducted with the Japanese-built Large Isothermal Furnace, which can heat samples to 1,600 degrees Celsius. Another 10 will be carried out in the German-built TEMPUS facility, which uses contamination-free electromagnetic levitation to suspend materials for details observations. The remainder of the materials science experiments will be carried out using a hands-on glovebox facility mounted on Columbia's lower deck. Columbia is scheduled to land April 19 at the Kennedy Space Center around 7:37 a.m. EDT. ====================================================================