Jamie Young - 2/5/2006 11:41 PMKayla mentioned this was a month away from happening before Challenger, but I've never heard of this before. Anyone got images and info?
J Britt RSA - 2/5/2006 11:53 PMThere's a very short article about it on Astronautix.com: http://www.astronautix.com/stages/cenrgsts.htmI remember seeing a black & white picture of the Galileo spacecraft being deployed from the Shuttle in some old space magazine. Before the Challenger disaster, there was a great deal of debate on how they would run the LOX/LH2 lines to fuel up the Centaur - would they run the lines through the shuttle's skin? What about an RTLS? How would they dump the Centaur's propellant?After Challenger, the debate became moot and the idea was canned.
Jim - 3/5/2006 1:50 PMThere were retractable umbilicals (Rolling Beam Umbilical System) on the top of the TSM's which mated with panels on the sides of the orbiter, towards the rear of the payload bay
DaveS - 3/5/2006 8:37 AMQuoteJim - 3/5/2006 1:50 PMThere were retractable umbilicals (Rolling Beam Umbilical System) on the top of the TSM's which mated with panels on the sides of the orbiter, towards the rear of the payload bayI know Atlantis was delivered to KSC as a Centaur capable orbiter, so now I'm trying to locate some photos of these panels. Where they on both sides of the orbiter or only on one side?
Skyrocket - 3/5/2006 1:35 AMHere are images of a Centaur-G including its Shuttle-cradle on display in Huntsville:...
Orbiter Obvious - 3/5/2006 11:23 AMThey were going to stick that in a Shuttle cargo bay?
Ben E - 3/5/2006 12:34 PMJim,Do you know of any other missions that would have used Centaur? As far as I'm aware, it was Galileo, Ulysses and Magellan, although I've heard it hinted that a few DoD missions out of Vandenberg would have needed Centaurs too.
shuttlefan - 3/5/2006 2:24 PMThey had to totally replan the Galileo and Magellan missions because the IUS is less powerful. That's where the gravity-assists came into play.
gladiator1332 - 3/5/2006 8:51 PMQuoteshuttlefan - 3/5/2006 2:24 PMThey had to totally replan the Galileo and Magellan missions because the IUS is less powerful. That's where the gravity-assists came into play.So in a strange way, though we lost a powerful upperstage and some missions were scaled down, we saw the use of the gravity-assists that are used a lot more today.