Discovery STS-26 – The Dream is Alive

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

November 20: IN OTHER NEWS
The Soviets report they are bulding three more shuttles in addition to Buran. Each shuttle is said to be able to carry up to ten cosmonauts and can stay in space for up to four weeks. The second orbiter is said to be complete – it  will be named Ptichka (“Birdie”) +++ The Soviets have given up hope of reviving the Phobos 1 Mars probe disabled earlier this year, Tass reports. (Countdown, February 1989)

November 22: SOVIET RESEARCHER SAYS SHUTTLE NOT WORTH PRICE
The recently resigned head of Soviet space research says his country's maiden Space Shuttle launch had "absolutely no scientific value," and the U.S. and Soviet shuttle programs are in "deep trouble" economically. Roald Z. Sagdeyev, who headed the Soviet Space Research Institute for 15 years, said last week's inaugural Soviet shuttle flight - like the 1981 flight of the first U.S. shuttle - was an "outstanding technological achievement."The shuttle, however, "is technology of the 21st century.
Why should we pay 20th-century money for it?"

"My personal view is that American experience with the shuttle indicates that from the point of view of cost efficiency, the shuttle is in deep trouble," said Sagdeyev, who has followed closely the U.S. decision-making process on the shuttle and is a key science and arms control adviser to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. "It is much simpler and cheaper to fly a payload with any kind of expendable vehicle." Sagdeyev, like many American scientists, fears the costly shuttles are drawing away much needed funds from basic science, and that manned flight is unnecessary for most research.

"It went up. It came down. But it had absolutely no scientific value," was Sagdeyev's blunt assessment of the 31/2-hour, unmanned orbital flight a week ago Tuesday of the Soviet shuttle that ended the U.S. monopoly on reusable spacecraft. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, the 55-year-old physicist confirmed he
voluntarily left the top post at the agency that handles space exploration and astronomy because he felt no one person should dominate an institute for such a long time. Sagdeyev, a longtime member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, said he would concentrate on his own research and the think tank he heads that advises Gorbachev on arms control. (Deseret News, Nov. 22, 1988)

January 2, 1989: FOOD, CLOTHING SHORTAGES TRIGGER CLASH IN USSR OVER SPACE SHUTTLE COSTS
It was hard to tell the Soviets from the Americans without a scorecard this week as squabbling grew louder over spending huge amounts on a Soviet Space Shuttle project while other needs go begging. The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Monday, without giving details of the debate, that some scientists involved in the project joined consumers upset by food and clothing shortages in questioning the value of the program.In the years before scientists here revealed their own shuttle program, they assailed the U.S. project as too costly and of questionable use. Many Soviet scientists said they could gain the same goals with more standard, single-use rockets.

Pravda said in a full-page article devoted to the development and testing of the Soviet shuttle that a "major rethinking and a fierce clash of ideas, concepts and proposals are under way" even within the Space Shuttle program. The Soviets successfully launched the Space Shuttle Buran (Snowstorm) on Nov. 15 on an unmanned three-hour, 20-minute test flight. "Tons, speed, heights, automation and etc.," wrote A. Rudenko, a Pravda reader from the Moldavian capital of Kishinev, on Buran. "But where are the expenditures, the billions of rubles of the national means?
"Where is the mutual connection with the people's well-being? How many years has Buran delayed fulfillment of the food program, the output of good-quality shoes, clothes and the improvement of medical care for Soviet citizens?" he asked.

Pravda said that only a small part of the Soviet shuttle's program has been fulfilled, and the Buran has yet to prove that it can perform useful work in orbit. The newspaper said that the reaction of Soviet citizens to the 1961 launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was much more positive than the reaction to the Space Shuttle program, even though people were poorer then. (Deseret News, Jan. 3, 1989)

February 1, 1989: SOVIET SHUTTLE TO BRING SPACE STATION HOME
The Soviet Union will use its recently launched Buran Space Shuttle to retrieve the mothballed Salyut 7 space station and return it to Earth for possible repair and relaunch, Radio Moscow said Wednesday. The Salyut 7, launched in April 1982, was shut down three years ago when the new generation Mir space station was launched. A total of 21 cosmonauts worked on Salyut 7 during its four years in service. The station had been hounded by bad luck almost since its launch. In 1985, the station's solar batteries malfunctioned, shutting down all power and rendering the complex useless. A Soviet space repair crew managed to revive the station in what still rates as one of the most daring and complex repair operations in the history of space exploration. During a previous mission, cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin became seriously ill while on board Salyut 7, forcing an earlier termination of the flight.

"The experts of the Soviet space program intend to bring back to Earth the orbiting Salyut 7 space station with the help of the re-useable Space Shuttle Buran," Radio Moscow said. The Buran, which means snowstorm in Russian, was successfully tested in an unmanned mode last November. Its cargo hold can easily carry the entire Salyut station. Radio Moscow did not say when the retrieval mission might take place. (Deseret News, Feb. 1, 1989)

                                           +       +       +

As it turned out, no Soviet shuttle would ever leave Earth again. Funding for Energiya and Buran was stopped in 1992. And yet there would be Russian shuttle cosmonauts – the end of the Cold War and the realization of economic realities on both sides led to the U.S./Russian cooperation in space in the 1990s, which – despite difficulties, as well as unforeseen events and political decisions – exists to this day. And we all know there would never have been an International Space Station without this cooperation of the former rivals.

[Ares67]

Well, after telling you the long story of America’s successful return to space following the loss of Challenger, this concludes my RTF/STS-26 project. I hope you have once again enjoyed the results of my “hunter-gatherer” efforts, dating back to the 1980s.

But this was only the start of the new beginning, so of course I will continue my shuttle history series in the coming months.

And as you can see from this Countdown flight schedule, there were interesting missions ahead. I’ll continue chronologically with STS-27, but I’m also already preparing text material and photos for all the 1989 flights (including a pimped up version of the already existing STS-34 thread).

So, be prepared for the following threads, which I’ll try to bring to you during the remainder of this year:

Atlantis STS-27 – Battered and Bruised

Discovery STS-29 – Got a Perfect View

Atlantis STS-30 – One Touch of Venus

Columbia STS-28 – Called Back to Duty

Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!

Discovery STS-33 – Falcon in the Sky


High-resolution photos of Discovery STS-26 are available at L2:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=13780.0

For all you Buran fans, there’s a spectacular movie at L2:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=10878.0

and of course there is the Buran thread at:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=636.0

[Beemer]

Once again Ares67 you have done an outstanding job! Thank you! 

[Zero-G]

Yes, great job! Thank you!

I just don't understand why the report about Buran was also added to this thread. I think it deserves its own thread.
BTW, there are some factual errors: For example, the strap-ons used kerosene and LOX, not LH2 and LOX. Also, the Buran orbiter was not equipped with jet engines. Only the atmospheric test vehicle BTS-002, also known as "Buran Analog", was equipped with four jet engines, two of them afterburning, but was never intended to fly into orbit. It was used for approach and landing tests to develop and test the automatic landing. This is the vehicle that now resides in the Technikmuseum in Speyer, Germany.

[Lewis007]

For those interested, attached is the STS-26 mission report

[shuttlefan]

Thanks for another great set of pictures and screengrabs Ares. You are great!!

[Ares67]

Thank you all for the kind words.  – And thanks for the corrections, Zero-G. But please keep in mind that most of the texts I use are news stories representing the state of knowledge at the time. It’s part of my concept for these threads, although sometimes I take a wider view by giving away my knowledge of the “future”    So remember, 1988 was a time when western journalists still had to do a lot of tea leaf reading concerning events in the Soviet Union. Most of the reliable details about Buran became available much later.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

"The official Tass news agency said as it prepared to re-enter the atmosphere, the shuttle turned its tail forward and switched on a retrofire engine. At an altitude of 24 miles, the craft turned again and began its approach like an airplane."

Wait, what? just 24 miles altitude before resuming nose-forward flight? So that means a tail first re-entry and braking manoeuvres? What in the name of science were those journalists thinking in the 80's? It sometimes really annoys me, watching documentaries on TV or reading in magazines how little journalists actually knew (and still know) about spaceflight at all.
Sometimes things might perhaps get lost in translation but come on, With people knowing the moves of the U.S. shuttle so well, no intelligent western journalist should come up with the idea Buran would re-enter tail end first.
It doesn't even make me laugh. Just frown with disbelief.

On another note: Thanks for the thorough report on shuttle filghts. You do a great job!

[catdlr]

STS-26 Discovery Space Shuttle Launch Simulation - Prepping for Return to Flight

Sep 13, 2024  #spaceshuttle #nasa #discovery
Watch the crew of the STS-26 Discovery mission as they conduct a simulator exercise in preparation for NASA's return-to-flight mission. This video includes a detailed simulated liftoff, with commentary from NASA's "Voice of Launch Control," Hugh Harris, followed by the deployment of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), all captured on October 20, 1987. Please note: there is no audio following the launch simulation.

Video courtesy of NASA/National Archives.

Discovery crew members:
Commander: Frederick Hauck
Pilot: Richard Covey
Mission Specialist 1: John Lounge
Mission Specialist 2: David Hilmers
Mission Specialist 3: George Nelson

[ZachS09]

I remember that video very well. When I was a kid, I constantly perused the original Shuttlesource website, watching almost every video including the STS-26 launch sim.

However, since that site disappeared, I tried looking high and low on the internet for a reupload of the launch sim but had no luck. The only video that kinda came close was the STS-26 RTLS abort sim, which also used footage from STS-51-J (the launch depicted in both videos).

Weird, though, how they kept Hugh Harris’ commentary from 51-J, which was flown by Atlantis; Discovery was the orbiter used for the launch sim.

But regardless of that nitpick, nice to see the video again after so many years.

[catdlr]

Space Shuttle Discovery Crew Arrives at Kennedy Space Center for STS-26 Inspection

Sep 15, 2024  #spaceshuttle #nasa #discovery
On April 29, 1988, the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery arrived at Kennedy Space Center to conduct a detailed inspection of the shuttle ahead of the historic STS-26 return to flight mission. This mission marked NASA's first shuttle launch since the Challenger tragedy, making this inspection a critical step in ensuring Discovery's readiness for flight.

Discovery crew members:
Commander: Frederick Hauck
Pilot: Richard Covey
Mission Specialist 1: John Lounge
Mission Specialist 2: David Hilmers
Mission Specialist 3: George Nelson

[FutureSpaceTourist]

TDRS-C Satellite Prepares for Launch | Space Shuttle Mission STS-26

Shuttlesource
19 Sept 2024
#spaceshuttle
#nasa
#discovery

This video includes scenes as the TDRS-C satellite undergoing final preparations for its STS-26 mission. The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), TDRS-C enhanced the communication between the shuttle and mission control, supporting scientific research and space exploration.

Discovery crew members:
Commander: Frederick Hauck
Pilot: Richard Covey
Mission Specialist 1: John Lounge
Mission Specialist 2: David Hilmers
Mission Specialist 3: George Nelson

[catdlr]

Space Shuttle Discovery Rolled Over to Vehicle Assembly Building | STS-26

Sep 20, 2024
Space Shuttle Discovery is powered up and rolled over to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in preparation for NASA's historic STS-26 return to flight mission.

Discovery crew members:
Commander: Frederick Hauck
Pilot: Richard Covey
Mission Specialist 1: John Lounge
Mission Specialist 2: David Hilmers
Mission Specialist 3: George Nelson