Author Topic: STS-2: 25 years ago....  (Read 25050 times)

Online Orbiter

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2995
  • Florida
  • Liked: 1548
  • Likes Given: 1385
Re: STS-2: 25 years ago....
« Reply #60 on: 03/29/2008 04:54 pm »
Its so very sad that she is gone forever, only "Remains".
KSC Engineer, astronomer, rocket photographer.

Online catdlr

  • Member
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11052
  • Enthusiast since the Redstones
  • Marina del Rey, California, USA
  • Liked: 8572
  • Likes Given: 7671
Re: STS-2: 25 years ago....
« Reply #61 on: 05/13/2017 08:25 pm »
bump......


STS-2: "Space Shuttle Columbia: Second Flight" 1981 NASA First Reuse of a Manned Spacecraft


Jeff Quitney
Published on May 13, 2017

Astronauts: Joe H. Engle and Richard H. Truly
Launch date: November 12, 1981
Covers unprecedented second launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the world's first reusable spacecraft. Also includes the events leading up to the second launch, major crew activities on-orbit, and landing.

NASA film HQ-324 aka JSC-818

STS-2 Mission Report
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19830001834.pdf

A new epoch in space travel—the era of reusable space vehicles—opened with the launch of NASA's Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 10:10 a.m EST, November 12, 1981. The manned Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia flew into space again, making It the first space vehicle to be used more than once—another step toward certifying Space Shuttle as an operational spacecraft.

Columbia is the first of four planned orbiters... This mission, called STS-2, is the second of four orbital flight tests designed to Improve and ready STS for operational use...

The flight test was planned to last for more than five days. However, early on the first day, trouble developed in one of Columbia's fuel cells that convert hydrogen and oxygen Into electrical power for the spacecraft and drinking water for the crew. With one of three fuel cells malfunctioning, mission safety rules called for STS-2 to be reduced to a minimal mission lasting 54 hours (36 orbits of Earth). After some deliberation, test managers decided to go by the book. As a result, the crew—NASA astronauts Joe H. Engle, commander, and Richard H. Truly, pilot—reluctantly cut short their space mission, landing Columbia at 4:23 p m. EST, November 14, at Edwards Air Force Base. California. Their total flight time was 2 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes and 12 seconds...

Among their major goals was the first test in space of a Canadian-built remote manipulator system. The system is comprised of a huge mechanical arm, operating from Columbia's cavernous payload bay and guided by controls on Columbia's control deck. The system is designed to deploy payloads into orbit and retrieve them, as well as for other freight -handling activities in space. The arm can even be used to reach around and inspect various external parts of Columbia. It has its own lighting system and closed circuit television so that the crews operating it have a close-up view of what they are doing.

The mechanical arm is jointed like a human arm at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Fully extended, it is 15.3 meters (50 feet) long. It is 38 centimeters (15 inches) in diameter. Despite its size, it is made of sturdy, lightweight materials giving it a weight on Earth of only 408 kilograms (900 pounds). The human analogy ends with the wrist. Its "hand," called an "end effector," consists of a snare wire device that can be tightened around grapples attached to the payloads.

Engle and Truly operated the arm in all of its modes, ranging from fully automatic, in which it is programmed in advance by computer to perform a series of operations, to fully manual, in which it is operated directly from a control panel that bypasses the
computer...

In addition to gathering engineering dam, Columbia in STS-2 conducted experiments that would contribute to such fields as prospecting for oil, gas, coal, and minerals, locating promising ocean fishing grounds, understanding how gravity affects plant growth, forecasting thunderstorms, and other severe weather, and measuring air pollution.

---------------------------------------
Reupload of a previously uploaded film, in one piece instead of multiple parts, and with improved video & sound.

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojAHoSBu0s?=001


« Last Edit: 05/13/2017 08:25 pm by catdlr »
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Offline WallE

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 413
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 1
Re: RE: STS-2: 25 years ago....
« Reply #62 on: 05/15/2017 07:34 am »
The final STS-2 images from my collection..

That brown tint in the photos isn't very nice to look at, unfortunately that was the style in the 70s-80s.  Compare Gemini-era images which have much more natural-looking color.

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
0