STS-27 tile damage remembrance

[psloss]

Bill Harwood recently interviewed Hoot Gibson:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/recent.html

(Also a "permalink" on SFN.)

[generic_handle_42]

As mentioned in the article, Mike Mullane also gives a good account of that flight and the tile damage in his book Riding Rockets.  I recommend picking up a copy if you haven't already.

[fdasun]

Bill Harwood recently interviewed Hoot Gibson:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/recent.html

(Also a "permalink" on SFN.)

A shock. I knew Atlantis suffered a serious damage of her TPS in STS-27, but have never seen these pictures before.

So, did anyone know post-flight analyses of reasons of this damage and follow-up corrections made on shuttle system ?

[Ronsmytheiii]

Here is a high resolution image of STS-27 landing

[Shuttle Man]

Remember this well. Philip didn't you provide a video of the damage post landing on L2?

[vt_hokie]

Wow, that was a very interesting and eye opening read!  I remember reading about the tile damage on this flight, but didn't realize how close it actually was.

[psloss]

Remember this well. Philip didn't you provide a video of the damage post landing on L2?

Yeah, but it's not necessarily available to everyone and I thought the interview with Hoot Gibson was interesting on its own.

[Orbiter]

Here is a high resolution image of STS-27 landing

My goodness! Look at all the tiles damaged/lossed! If this was a shuttle after RTF Columbia then we'd be looking at a year standown.

[MBK004]

My goodness! Look at all the tiles damaged/lossed! If this was a shuttle after RTF Columbia then we'd be looking at a year standown.

If that was post Columbia, I would think there would be a contingency launch and they would attempt an unmanned RCO entry with the damaged orbiter.

[PMN1]

If the damage had caused catastrophic failure, what does that do for any proposal to use STS components in a new launch vehicle?

[nathan.moeller]

If the damage had caused catastrophic failure, what does that do for any proposal to use STS components in a new launch vehicle?

Depends on which components you're talking about.  The TPS was the biggest issue here and that isn't being carried over the next vehicle, so I'd say a failure during a situation like this would not be an issue for such a proposal.

[Ben E]

So, if this was only the second post-51L mission, why was a stand-down not enforced? STS-29 lifted off barely 3 months later.

[robertross]

That's wild. I like this one statement:

"So I knew that that's what I was going to see if it started to go," Gibson said. "And therefore, that told me that I'd have at least 60 seconds to tell mission control what I thought of their analysis."

Nothing more to be said from that.

[the_other_Doug]

So, if this was only the second post-51L mission, why was a stand-down not enforced? STS-29 lifted off barely 3 months later.

The problem is, STS-27 didn't enhance concern over orbiter damage from shedding ET foam.  It pushed poeple's thinking the other way -- "See how robust this TPS system really is?  Why, we can chop off tile after tile and the thing just powers right on through and lands with no problems."

Indeed, instead of pointing out the real dangers of foam impacts, STS-27 reinforced the too-smug thinking that the TPS can handle *anything* and not result in LOCV -- thinking that eventually contributed to the loss of Columbia.

-the other Doug

[mike5770]

How very lucky everyone was with this incident! Obviously the lives of the astronauts but also the life of the shuttle program. If the program suffered another locv incident on the second flight back that could have doomed the shuttle program.