Author Topic: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!  (Read 155151 times)

Offline Ares67

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Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« on: 10/16/2012 06:05 pm »
Contents

1) Introduction / STS-34 Preview / Preparations

2) Voyager 2 at Neptune (August 1989) / Pale Blue Dot

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30113.msg968889#msg968889

3) Crew Training / STS-34 Preparations / Countdown / Mission / Postflight

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30113.msg968967#msg968967

4) The Galileo Mission (1989 – 2003)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30113.msg970389#msg970389
« Last Edit: 10/19/2012 09:22 pm by Ares67 »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #1 on: 10/16/2012 06:11 pm »
Galileo, a sincere believer…


“Fear before Him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.”

1 Chronicles 16:30

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the Universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the Universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
 

“Eppur si muove!” – “And yet it moves!” Legend has it that Tuscan mathematician, physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, born in Florence in 1564, uttered these defiant words in 1633 after having been forced to recant his belief that the Earth moves around the Sun. In January 1610, the "father of modern observational astronomy” had turned his newly fashioned telescope, using Dutchman Hans Lippershey’s invention of “perspective glass,” to the gas giant Jupiter and had discovered its four largest satellites – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, later fittingly called the “Galilean Moons.” Galileo’s groundbreaking observations set modern astronomy in motion and contributed to the paradigm shift known as the Copernican Revolution, which challenged the day’s understanding of the Universe.

In 1616 Galileo was told by Pope Paul V not to teach the still unproven Copernican theory. In 1623, Galileo’s scientifically sympathetic friend Cardinal Matteo Barbarini became Pope Urban VIII, but though the astronomer now enjoyed long private audiences, he wasn’t able to persuade the new Pope to overturn the ruling of his predecessor. Nevertheless, in 1631 Galileo published his book “The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World,” discussing the conflicting Copernican and Ptolemaic views of how the Universe is structured. The manuscript even had the official approval of the church’s censor. But Galileo’s clerical enemies – among them a number of radical Jesuit intellectuals – soon brought theological errors and “Protestant” interpretations of natural phenomena to the Pope’s attention. Once again Galileo was accused of heretically interpreting religion in scientific terms. In his view, scientific discovery complemented rather than contradicted the Bible. So apart from scientific heresy – legally Galileo had “breached bail” after having been virtually pardoned by the Pope in 1616 for his heliocentric “offenses.”

So Galileo was summoned to Rome, where he now had to face inquiry by the Holy Inquisition and – after extensive legal proceedings – eventually was found guilty of heresy. Following Galileo’s official recantation, he was placed under house arrest; his publications were “corrected.” Galileo died in his Villa at Arcetri, near his native Florence, in 1642. Following Galileo’s trial, Nicholas Copernicus’ manuscript “De Revolutionibus,” ninety years after its first publication, was put onto the Vatican’s index of banned books.

It only took 359 years, during which we all – Roman Catholics included – continued rotating around the Sun, but in 1992 the Catholic Church officially acknowledged that Galileo had been right all along; Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the affair was handled. "Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions," the Pope explained.

The conflict between the Vatican and the Italian astronomer once more had shown that the Bible is a book of faith, not of science – and therefore shouldn’t be used to disprove scientific facts or theories. Nor is it wise to read and interpret the Holy Scripture only by means of Occam’s razor. Looking for “Biblical truths” you’ve always got to take into account when, where, why and by whom those texts were written. Intellectual laziness – on either side – never was, and never will be helpful in our struggle to understand how the Universe works and what our place in it is. In 1992 Pope John Paul II stated, “Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive regarding the relation of scientific and Biblical truths than the theologians who opposed him."

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #2 on: 10/16/2012 06:15 pm »
“Religion deals with history, with poetry, with great literature, with ethics, with morals, including the morality of treating compassionately the least fortunate among us. All of these are things that I endorse wholeheartedly. Where religion gets into trouble is in those cases that it pretends to know something about science. The science in the Bible, for example, was acquired by the Jews from the Babylonians during the Babylonian captivity in 600 BC. That was the best science on the planet then.

But we’ve learned something since then. Roman Catholicism, Reform Judaism, most of the mainstream Protestant denominations have no difficulty with the idea that humans have evolved from other creatures, that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, the Big Bang. They don’t have any trouble with that. The trouble comes with people who are Biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is dictated by the Creator of the Universe to an unerring stenographer and has no metaphor or allegory in it.”


Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #3 on: 10/16/2012 06:18 pm »
Turbulent times

“And yet it moves!” probably also was an expression on the minds of Galileo project managers and scientists when the Jupiter probe, named after the Italian astronomer, was launched in fall of 1989. Finally the spacecraft left Earth, after twelve years of development, changes and delays – although it was scheduled to return twice before heading out to the largest planet of our solar system. At the same time the Galileo probe was to be launched aboard Atlantis, far beyond the realms of Jupiter, the Voyager 2 space probe explored another world moving around the Sun – dark-eyed Neptune and its icy moon Triton.

Meanwhile, back home on our Blue Planet, although the Bible states “the world also shall be stable,” in the fall of ’89 it was anything but that. While Atlantis was getting ready to shake KSC and the surrounding Space Coast area once more, there was a major earthquake in California. At the same time political tremors shook Eastern Europe – especially communist East Germany. And then even the thought of the possible outcome of this particular shuttle launch itself sent shivers down the spines of some anti-nuclear activists. So, in a way, during those turbulent times everything was moving…

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #4 on: 10/16/2012 06:20 pm »
Is recovery complete?

(By Dixon P. Otto, Publisher and Editor, Countdown Magazine)

Columbia returned to flight on August 8, making a classified military mission, STS-28, and then successfully returned to Earth five days later. Some at NASA hailed Columbia, completing the return of all three existing orbiters, as marking the end of the recovery from the Challenger disaster. Is the “Return-To-Flight Era” complete? I don’t believe so – not yet. Comments about the end of the “recovery” remind me too much of the premature declarations that the shuttle was “operational” after just four test flights in 1981-82. NASA has juggled three operating orbiters before – even four, briefly. The true test of the recovery is keeping those orbiters flying. That test of what was once called the National Space Transportation system (NSTS) – and which still carries the STS tag – looms at hand.

Three “must” missions are at hand during the final three months of the decade. The window for Atlantis STS-34, carrying the Galileo Jupiter probe, extends from October 12 to November 21. However, a launch at the November end of the window would not only impact downstream shuttle flights, but would begin to eat into Galileo’s fuel reserves, which would then be needed to fine-tune the trajectory. Granted, all primary objectives at Jupiter could still be met, but secondary objectives, such as asteroid encounters en route, would begin to drop by the wayside and the chances for an extended mission at Jupiter would decrease.

The military has another – but one of the last – secret mission, Discovery STS-33, set for a November 19 launch. The flight, delayed from August due to schedule slips, must carry importance to the military. They refused to flip-flop it with the December mission.

We know how critical that December flight, Columbia STS-32, is going to be. The mission, to be launched December 18, is to retrieve the Long Duration Exposure Facility, placed on orbit by Challenger STS 41-C in April 1984. The bus-size LDEF – a simple experiment carrier with no communications, power, or propulsion – was supposed to be retrieved a year later. A long string of delays in the pick-up began well before the Challenger accident. Now LDEF is on the verge of falling into the atmosphere, thanks to a more active sun whose solar-wind influence on the atmosphere serves to increase drag on a satellite. Just when LDEF enters the atmosphere depends on the strength of the solar influence in the coming months. It could fall in January. It could already be tumbling in orbit by December, which would prevent retrieval by the shuttle.

So these missions must come off, and therefore form a giant test of the return to flight. The situation reminds me of the end of 1985, when launches were scheduled for October 3, October 30, November 26 and December 18. Now as then, the flights are running into holidays. The November military flight will launch just four days before Thanksgiving. Some at NASA will not have time to eat turkey. The December LDEF retrieval will still be flying on Christmas. Some at NASA will have to wait to open presents. And at that point, the next mission will be just about a month away, coming four days after the fourth anniversary of Challenger. The return to flight is not something that ever ends. It must be won with each flight. (Countdown, “CapCom” Editorial, October 1989)
« Last Edit: 10/17/2012 02:21 pm by Ares67 »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #5 on: 10/16/2012 06:22 pm »
An emblem heralding one of the great shuttle missions

The triangular shape of the STS-34 patch represents forward motion and the entering into new frontiers of science, engineering and technology. The Galileo spacecraft overlaying the orbiter symbolizes the union of the manned and unmanned space programs, both joined together in order to maximize the capabilities of each. The crew members, who designed the patch, use a sunrise stretching across Earth’s horizon to depict expansion of our knowledge of the solar system and other worlds, leading to a better understanding of our own planet. In the distance, Jupiter, a unique world with many unknowns, awaits the arrival of Galileo to help unlock its secrets. Meanwhile, the Space Shuttle remains in Earth orbit, continuing to explore the near-Earth environment. (Description on STS-34 decal and Countdown, October 1989)


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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #6 on: 10/16/2012 06:25 pm »
Five ready for Jovian task

STS-34 might be considered a Purdue affair, with both Commander Don Williams and Pilot Mike McCulley having attended the university. McCulley is going from under the oceans to above the atmosphere, having begun his Navy career on submarines. The presence of nuclear devices onboard the Galileo payload should be an old hat to Mission Specialist Franklin Chang-Diaz, who continues to work on the side on designs for fusion reactors. If someone shouts “Is there a doctor in the house?” Ellen Baker, a medical doctor, can answer the call. She is also one of the new breed of astronauts who worked at the Johnson Space Center in other capacities before becoming astronauts. Shannon Lucid, one of the original six women astronauts, might be considered one of the “old breed,” who came to NASA from outside scientific careers in the 1970s.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #7 on: 10/16/2012 06:26 pm »
Commander Donald Edward Williams was born February 13, 1942, in Lafayette, Indiana. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in 1964. Williams received his commission through the NROTC program at Purdue. After he had completed flight training and received his Navy wings in May 1966 he made two Vietnam deployments aboard the USS Enterprise. Williams served as a flight instructor for two years at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, and transitioned to A-7 aircraft. He then made two additional Vietnam deployments aboard USS Enterprise and completed a total of 330 combat missions. In 1973 he attended the Armed Forces Staff College and in June 1974 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Assigned to the Naval Air Test Center’s Carrier Suitability Branch Williams was head of the Carrier Systems Branch, Strike Aircraft Test Directorate from August 1976 to June 1977. Williams was selected as an astronaut in January 1978. In August 1979 he qualified as shuttle pilot, working in SAIL and at KSC in orbiter test, checkout, launch and landing operations. Williams served as deputy manager, Operations Integration, at the National Space Transportation System Program Office at Johnson Space Center from September 1982 through July 1983. He flew as pilot aboard Discovery STS 51-D in April 1985. Williams has logged 4,700 hours flying time, including 4,500 hours in jets and 745 carrier landings; he’s logged 168 hours in space. In September 1986 he was scheduled to command Challenger – with 51-L Pilot Mike Smith assisting him in the cockpit. The crew of mission 61-I would have included an Indian payload specialist and the first journalist in space. It was supposed to launch the Insat 1-C communications satellite and retrieve the LDEF science platform. After the loss of Challenger, Don Williams served concurrently as deputy chief of the aircraft operations division at JSC (July 1985 through August 1986), then as chief of the mission support branch of the astronaut office (September 1986 through December 1988). He was assigned to his duties as STS-34 commander in August 1988.

Pilot Michael James McCulley was born August 4, 1943, in san Diego, California but considers Livingston, Tennessee his hometown. After graduation from high school in 1961 he enlisted in the Navy and served on one diesel-powered and two nuclear-powered submarines. McCulley entered Purdue University in 1966 and received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Metallurgical Engineering in 1970, earning his officer’s commission in the Navy upon graduation. Following flight training, he served tours of duty in A-4 and A-6 aircraft until being assigned to the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough, England. He was test pilot at the Naval Ir Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, for several years and served as operations officer for Attach Squadron 35 aboard the USS Nimitz when NASA selected him as an astronaut candidate in May 1984. His first technical assignment was serving as astronaut weather coordinator at KSC. McCulley was supposed to fly as pilot aboard Columbia STS 61-N, a secret DOD mission scheduled for September 1986. During the hiatus caused by the Challenger disaster he served as the technical assistant to Don Puddy, Director of Flight Crew Operations, and as his representative to the STS program requirements control board. He was assigned as pilot of STS-34 in September 1988. McCulley has flown over 40 aircraft types from six different aircraft carriers, logging over 4,100 hours of flying time with 400 carrier landings.

Mission Specialist Shannon Wells Lucid was born January 14, 1943, in Shanghai, China, but considers Bethany, Oklahoma, to be her hometown. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Oklahoma in 1963, as well as Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Biochemistry in 1970 and 1973. When selected as one of the original six U.S. women astronauts in 1978 she had been a research associate with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation since 1974. Lucid worked in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory and the Flight Software Laboratory in Downey, California, with the rendezvous and proximity operations group. Lucid flew as Mission Specialist on Discovery STS 51-G in June 1985, gaining 170 hours of spaceflight time. From August 1985 to January 1986 she served as CapCom for several shuttle flights – and continued to do so in the post-Challenger era.

Mission Specialist Ellen Louise Baker was born April 27, 1953, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974 and a doctorate of Medicine degree from Cornell University in 1987. Baker spent three years in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, and was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1981. In 1981 she joined NASA as a medical officer at the Johnson Space Center. She graduated from the Air Force Aerospace Medicine Primary Course at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio. Prior to being selected as an astronaut candidate Baker served as a physician in the Flight Medicine Clinic at JSC. She has had technical assignments involving flight software at SAIL and Space Station development.

Mission Specialist Franklin R. Chang-Diaz was born April 5, 1950, in san Jose, Costa Rica. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1973 and a doctorate in Applied Plasma Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. While at MIT, Chang-Diaz was involved in the U.S. controlled fusion program, conducting research into the design of fusion reactors. Upon graduation, he joined the technical staff of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, working in the design and integration of control systems for fusion reactor concepts. In 1979 Chang-Diaz developed a concept to guide and target fuel pellets in an inertial fusion reactor chamber. He was selected as astronaut candidate in May 1980, and in addition to that was appointed as visiting scientist with MIT Plasma Fusion Center in October 1983, where he continues research on advanced plasma rockets. Chang-Diaz was involved in flight software checkout in the SAIL and also participated in early Space Station design studies. He was a member of the Spacelab 1 support crew and acted as CapCom during STS-9 in November/December 1983. Chang-Diaz led the astronaut support team at the Kennedy Space Center from October 1984 to August 1985 and flew as Mission Specialist aboard Columbia STS 61-C in January 1986. In 1988 he helped form the Astronaut Science Support Group, which he headed until January 1989. He has logged over 1,100 hours of flight time, including 800 hours in jets. He has logged 146 hours in space.

(Countdown, October 1989, and Michael Cassutt: Who’s Who in Space, ISS Edition 1999 – edited)


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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #8 on: 10/16/2012 06:29 pm »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #9 on: 10/16/2012 06:32 pm »
STS-34 – A busy mission

The shuttle launch teams at Kennedy Space Center will be sweating liquid heat come October 12 – no matter the status of the weather or orbiter Atlantis. On that day, the launch window of STS-34, with its cargo of Galileo, opens – but opens just a crack – for nine minutes at 1:29 p.m. EDT. The launch team will try to squeeze the shuttle through this doll-house-sized window. However, if Atlantis does not lift off on the first day, the opportunity to fly extends for a long time. The launch “season” for Galileo stretches until November 21, with the window on individual days growing to 47 minutes before shrinking back to under 20 minutes. “A pretty nice launch period for us,” says Lead Flight Director Milt Heflin.

Even so, the sooner Atlantis makes orbit, the better for Galileo. The later in the period the mission begins the more precious maneuvering fuel the Jupiter ship must expend to reach its destination. Even with a launch late in the period, Galileo will have enough fuel to achieve all of its primary objectives at Jupiter, but some secondary objectives along the way might have to be dropped. For example, if launch comes later than a couple weeks into the period, flybys of two asteroids en route might have to be dropped to save fuel.

As with the short window on STS-30 / Magellan in May, the countdown is being modified to maximize the response time to any problems late in the count. “We’re going to add an addition time at the T-9 minute hold point (normally ten minutes long). We’re going to add about 30 minutes to that time, giving us a chance close to T-0 to work any problems that we’ve got. That should help. It’s a short window and basically comes down to making a launch on time,” Heflin says.

Atlantis will enter an unusual orbit for the shuttle, inclined 34.3 degrees to the equator, rather than the 28.85 degrees inclination normally used. “The inclination was chosen to help us build a launch period in a launch window,” Heflin says. Atlantis will use a single burn of the OMS to circulate the orbiter at 184 miles. Once on orbit, the astronauts will begin deployment checkouts of the Galileo spacecraft and its solid-motor Inertial Upper Stage. “The procedures that we’re going through for this IUS deploy are standard fare, based upon our previous IUS deploys,” Heflin says. Three spacecraft employing the IUS, used to lift them into higher orbits or out of Earth orbit, have been deployed in the first five post-Challenger missions. About 45 minutes prior to release the satellite/IUS will be raised 29 degrees in its doughnut-shaped cradle. Then about twenty minutes before deploy, it will be raised to the deploy angle of 52 degrees – ready to be pushed off, gliding up over the crew cabin. The Galileo deploy, coming on orbit five at 6 hours 21 minutes into the flight, will occur as the shuttle passes over the coast of California – fittingly, since the state is home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the planetary project.

“If you happen to be in the right spot, you may even be able to see it,” says Commander Williams. “The deploy occurs about seven minutes before sunset. So as we pass over the United States, those of you who live in the southeast may be able at dusk to see not only Atlantis, but Galileo.” Lucid will work the IUS deploy while Baker serves as “Galileo officer,” watching over the spacecraft systems. They will have about a 7-minute slot on orbit five in which to deploy it. However, the crew has opportunities for deployment on the next two orbits. If the task cannot be achieved for some reason on Flight Day One, opportunities are open on the next day beginning on orbit 15 and occurring during the next four orbits. The deployment window on each orbit varies from about two to ten minutes. If an unplanned spacewalk is needed – in case the tilt table fails to raise, for example – the crewmembers designated for extravehicular activity are Baker and Chang-Diaz.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #10 on: 10/16/2012 06:48 pm »
The crew’s work pace does not slacken, even with an on-time deployment on Flight Day One. “We’re not going to be wasting too much time on orbit. In fact, we’re going to be pretty busy,” Williams says. Atlantis will be carrying seven additional experiments, known as secondary payloads. The most prominent of the secondaries will be the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet experiment. The SSBUV, the only payload located in the cargo bay in addition to Galileo, is housed in two standard, garbage-can-size Getaway Special canisters mounted on the right-hand wall of the exposed bay. “SSBUV is going to drive our attitude onboard Atlantis for several days as we collect data,” Williams says.

SSBUV will measure the total amount and height distribution of the ozone in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Ozone is the earth’s natural suntan lotion, blocking harmful radiation from the surface. Pollution appears to be thinning the amount of ozone and opening a “hole” over the South Pole. The SSBUV will be flying on the shuttle one per year over the next decade, “doing periodic sampling to provide a long-term data set which will help us assess whether there is a trend in decreasing ozone,” says Ernest Hilsenrath, SSBUV principle investigator with the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “We still have a hard time in detecting ozone trend,” he says, because the total amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere is small and trends can be masked by natural variations.

Astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, who will operate the instrument, says, “We’re trying to measure the ozone level to a tremendous accuracy. It’s a quantity which is very, very small… and not only that, its change is even smaller.” – “Some recent, careful analysis of our NASA research satellite data indicated that indeed an ozone depletion has begun and is expected to continue,” Hilsenrath says. Satellites have been measuring ozone quantity for years, and three continue to do so. A Nimbus weather satellite launched in 1979 is the oldest of the trio. NOAA-9, launched in 1984, and NOAA-11, lofted just over a year ago, also monitor the ozone.

However, sensors on all three satellites have shown signs of degradation due to radiation effects. The most important aspect of the SSBUV investigation involves calibrating the weather satellites. The satellites and the SSBUV use similar sensors. Since the shuttle instrument can be carefully checked before and after the flight, its reading will be taken as the “reference standard” by which to set the others. Data from the satellites will be calibrated to that from the SSBUV. The instruments determine the ozone amount by comparing the amount of total energy in the near-ultraviolet coming from the sun with the amount reflected from the Earth. The SSBUV must be pointed at the Sun and then directly below at the Earth.

“The pilot will play an important role because he will be maneuvering the shuttle at appropriate times at Earth and also be rolling the shuttle over when we need to be looking at the Sun,” Hilsenrath says. “It just requires a few simple commands by one of the astronauts,” such as to power it up, open the sensor lid and set the mode for Earth or Sun viewing. The Earth readings will be timed to coincide with readings from the weather satellites flying higher in polar orbits. About 17 such opportunities occur each day as the orbital paths cross. “What we’d like to see is about 25 to 35 match ups. So within a two-day period we can accomplish the necessary observations required to do the in-orbit calibration,” Hilsenrath says.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #11 on: 10/16/2012 06:50 pm »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #12 on: 10/16/2012 06:51 pm »
Inside the middeck of the crew compartment the Polymer Morphology (PM-1), the third in a series of 3M Corp. experiments to fly on the shuttle, will study the formation and structure of polymers in weightlessness from melts. The experiment could lead to improved polymers used in tape backings. PM-1 will also study the effects of zero gravity on polymerization, which can be used in making adhesive products, and phase separation, which is important in making polymer blends. Two previous 3M experiments have flow twice each. The Diffuse Mixing of Organic Solutions (DMOS) grew organic crystals from solutions, and the Physical Vapor Transport of Organic Solids (PVTOS) produced organic thin films. “In the Polymer Morphology experiment we are expanding the boundaries of our exploration from the vapor and the solution phases,” says Debra Wilfong, PM-1 science coordinator for 3M. “Now we’re looking at the melt phase and also we’re going from looking at smaller molecules to macro-molecules – or polymers.”

The experiment uses infrared spectroscopy to record the changes in a sample as it reforms from a melt. In infrared spectroscopy, light passes through an interferometer and then through the sample, where a portion is absorbed. The rest passes through the sample and is detected, revealing the spectral “fingerprint” of the sample’s structure – the portion and configuration of the molecules at a given time. “In the Polymer Morphology experiment, we will be taking spectra continuously as the polymers are processed. As a polymer crystallizes, polymerizes or phase separates, we will be able to watch changes in spectral bands,” Wilfong says. This basic research is aimed at better understanding the processes that give polymers various characteristics which could be applied to the production of improved polymers used in many 3M products.

The PM-1 experiment apparatus replaces two middeck lockers, with the Generic Electronics Module (GEM) computer taking up another. Chang-Diaz will set up the experiment and Shannon Lucid will initiate the runs of sets of samples. The experiment will run automatically, with sample processing time varying from three to four hours to twenty hours, but Lucid will occasionally monitor its status. The new laptop computer, the Payload General Purpose Computer, test-flown on previous flights, will serve as the crew’s monitor for the experiment. “This will be the first time we will have used the PGPC to actually operate and collect data from a middeck experiment,” Williams says.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #13 on: 10/16/2012 06:53 pm »
Also in the middeck, corn shoots will be grown in darkness in the Growth Hormone Concentration and Distribution experiment (GHCD), studying how the mechanism which orients the roots and stems of plants operates in the absence of gravity. “It’s kind of interesting to me because I happened to have grown up in a rural area of the Midwest,” Williams says on the corn experiment. The orientation mechanism, guided by gravity, is triggered by concentrations of the growth hormone Indole Acetic Acid. IAA also “mediates” many plant growth processes, such as cell growth, the development of flowers and germination of seeds. The understanding of how IAA triggers growth events may help in the development of improved food crops.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #14 on: 10/16/2012 06:56 pm »
The experiment also could serve another function. “NASA is especially interested in it in terms of space exploration and colonization, where plants might be used in a closed-environmental system to convert the CO2 human’s produce in respiration back to oxygen, to recycle the waste products, and then basically as a source of food,” says Juanita Bray, Lockheed’s principle scientist for the experiment. The seeds will be wrapped in filter paper, “planted” in tubes, and loaded aboard the shuttle about 11 hours before launch. The crew’s major action with the GHCD experiment will occur after four days of growth in weightlessness, by which time sprouts about two inches long should have grown. A canister from each of the lockers will be removed by the crew and placed in a liquid nitrogen freezer to stop the growth and freeze growth hormones in place. Two other canisters will continue to grow until after landing.

A Sensor Technology experiment (STEX) also will be located in a middeck locker. The experimental radiation detector will measure background cosmic radiation. Using cameras and their own eyes, the crew will seek to observe and photograph lightning formations over wide areas on Earth as part of the Mesoscale Lightning Experiment. Shuttle crews have conducted MLE observations on each of the non-military shuttle missions since return to flight. Sightings over Australia, southern Mexico and Cape Canaveral are desired in order to compare with ground observations, but the exact list of targets will not be set until just prior to launch.

Filming of a different kind will be conducted with the large-format IMAX camera, which had flown on several previous shuttle flights, most recently gathering Earth views from STS-29 in March. The 70mm camera again will be shooting views of the Earth’s surface, and in addition, footage of the Galileo deploy will be shot. The IMAX Corp., a commercial Canadian company, is producing two large-screen films using such footage, “To the Stars” and “Exploring the Blue Planet.” (Edit – “Destiny in Space” and “Blue Planet”) “I would hope that this film that they will be putting together will assist us all in looking at the Planet Earth,” Heflin says.

Another experiment conducted on recent shuttle flights, observations of the shuttle by Air Force sensors at Maui in Hawaii, will be conducted. The Air Force Maui Optical Site calibration tests, which provide information on how objects in orbit appear to ground sensors, were conducted previously on STS-29. Unlike STS-29, the shuttle this time will not be able to make water dumps and thruster firings over the Maui site in order to gain data on how such events appear from the ground. Because Atlantis must maintain position for the SSBUV, it can only provide a passive AMOS target.

One student experiment, SE-82-15 Zero Gravity Growth of Ice Crystals from Supercooled Water with Relation to Temperature, will be conducted by the crew. It was developed under the sponsorship of Boeing in 1982 by Tracy Peters, then a high school senior at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord, California, but had to be put on hold after the Challenger accident. In the device, a filament is stretched between copper cold plates of different temperatures. The temperature difference causes a thin ice film on the plates to turn to vapor and move via diffusion. Ice crystals form at various temperatures along the filament. Shuttle Commander Don Williams will photograph the formation using a 35mm camera.

The results of this experiment could aid in the design of radiator cooling and cryogenic systems and will provide data on crystal growth for high altitude meteorology “This experiment will enable atmospheric scientists and crystal physicists to better understand the formation of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, which is very important for different sorts of solar absorptions,” says Peters, now a physics student at the University of California at Berkeley. The experiment also shows the value of school science fairs. Tracy Peters says it developed out of an 8th-grade science fair project in growing snow crystals.

In addition the crew will conduct a dozen Detailed Test Objectives and nine Detailed Supplementary Objectives. The DTOs and DSOs form part of an ongoing effort to study the engineering response of the shuttle and the physiological changes experienced by the shuttle crews. Many of the DTOs simply involve recording data of the performance of the shuttle during launch and landing. In one DTO which also was done on STS-29, the crew will attempt to photograph the spent External Tank after separation. “We had some problems associated with the Thermal Protection Syste. We think we’ve got that covered now, and we’re trying to gather data,” Heflin says. The orbiter will pitch 100 degrees so that the ET is in the overhead windows where they can observe the condition of the insulation. Baker will photograph the tank using a 70mm Hasselblad camera with a 250mm lens.

DTO 816 (Gravity Gradient Attitude Control) will investigate the means of maintaining the shuttle’s attitude without thruster firings, will be conducted by McCulley on Day Five. He will place the shuttle with the nose towards Earth and the right wing into the “velocity vector,” or direction of travel. This “gravity gradient” position should be stable – like a gravitation balance point – so that further thruster firings to maintain it will not be necessary. Data collected during this DTO will help refine the computer models used to predict stable gravity gradient attitudes. On STS-34, only long duration tests (8-12 hours) will be done. The long duration tests will help determine the amplitude of steady state attitude oscillations and the sensitivity of these oscillations to attitude and rate errors at attitude initiation.  “It’s a very quiescent attitude to fly,” Heflin says. “It’s an attitude that would be very useful for conducting experiments that require very low Gs and no thruster firings.” Thruster firings can disrupt delicate experiments, such as growing crystals. DTO 703 will perform demonstrations of S-Band and Ku-Band TDRS to TDRS handover capabilities. The handovers are ground commanded. Following each handover, the crew will record any changes in voice quality.

Many of the DSOs deal with trying to determine the causes of space sickness – called Space Adaptation Syndrome – which affects 50 percent of space voyagers during the first couple days on orbit. Photographs of the eye will be taken. “It’s an experiment to photograph the blood vessels on the back of the eyeball which are very sensitive to changes in pressure in the brain,” says Baker. “The theory is that with the fluid shifting that you normally get when you’re on orbit, there can be some swelling in the brain which can account for some of the symptoms we see in the first couple days in flight.” A Doppler sound probe will be used to measure blood flow in one of the major arteries leading to the brain. The investigation will seek to determine any changes in blood flow and velocity to the brain. The condition of muscles will be examined in a new DSO experiment which will compare small samples – biopsies – of muscle tissue taken from the astronauts before and after the flight. The experiment is “looking towards longer term spaceflight to see if we can determine why folks lose muscle mass and strength,” Baker says. “We have never looked at the muscle on  a cellular level, which is what we’ll be doing with the biopsy, to see if we can see changes in cellular architecture of muscle enzymes, things like that, which might give us an additional piece of the puzzle.”

As with all shuttle flights, Earth photography makes up part of the DSO objectives. “We have a rather ambitious Earth observations project,” Williams says. “We’re flying in 34.3 degrees inclination, which allows us to get a little higher and lower latitudes for the Earth obs. There are 32 terrestrial sites and five oceanographic sites. The land photography targets range from Southern California across the United States to Cape Hatteras, from the plains of Spain to Sri Lanka, from the Ganges River basin in India through Taiwan, Indonesia down to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The oceanographic sites range all the way from the Gulf Stream to the Yellow Sea.”

Operations on the secondary experiments and DTO/DSOs will occupy Flight Days Two, Three and Four – if the Galileo is deployed on time. Flight Day five, the day before landing, will be devoted to equipment stowage and testing out the systems needed to return to Earth. A crew press conference with CNN also will occur that morning. The flight will end on Flight Day Six, on the 82nd orbit. Touchdown at Edwards Air Force base, California, will occur at 1:14 p.m. PDT on October 17 after five days, two hours and 45 minutes in space. Landing a shuttle in a crosswind comprises one last mission DTO, if the proper wind conditions are present. “It’s just a matter of time before we go back to the Cape for a landing. This is one of the steps in that direction. There are some unknowns yet that have to be resolved,” Williams says. “One is the performance of the orbiter in crosswinds, because with a single runway at the Shuttle Landing Facility, you’re not always guaranteed that the ship is going to be headed into the wind.” For now, it is “California here I continue to come” for the shuttle – and for STS-34, add Jupiter to that. (STS-34 Press Kit and Countdown, October 1989 – edited)
« Last Edit: 10/16/2012 07:00 pm by Ares67 »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #15 on: 10/16/2012 06:58 pm »
Chris Bergin recently has posted the STS-34 flight plan on L2:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29905.msg953332;boardseen#new

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #16 on: 10/16/2012 07:02 pm »
STS-34 Flight Control

Flight control for STS-34, the thirty-first voyage of the Space Shuttle, will follow the same procedures and traditions common to all U.S. manned space flights since the Mission Control Center was first used for Gemini IV in 1965. As on past flights, responsibility for conduct of the mission will revert to the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston once Atlantis' two Solid Rocket Boosters ignite. Mission support will begin in the MCC about five hours prior to launch and will continue around the clock through the landing and post-landing activities.

The mission will be conducted from Flight Control Room One (FCR-1) on the second floor of the MCC, which is located in Bldg. 30 at Johnson Space Center. All of the traditional hallmarks of Shuttle missions will be available to news media covering the flight. Throughout the mission, NASA will continue its practice of providing around-the-clock, live release of air-to-ground transmissions between the spacecraft and the MCC. Live views of the activities within FCR-1, alternating with views of the large situation map in Mission Control, will be fed continuously on NASA Select television.

NASA also will hold change-of-shift press conferences with off-going flight directors, approximately every eight hours, as warranted by mission events and media interest. The press conferences will originate from JSC's News Center in Bldg. 2, Room 135, and will be carried live on NASA Select, with two-way question and answer capability available at NASA Headquarters, Kennedy Space Center, the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Dryden Flight Research Facility.

As in the past, three teams of flight controllers will alternate shifts in the control center and in nearby analysis and support facilities at JSC. The handover between each team takes about an hour and allows each flight controller to brief his or her oncoming colleague on the course of events over the previous two shifts. Change-of-shift press conferences generally take place 30 minutes to an hour after the shift handovers have been completed. The three flight control teams are referred to as the Ascent/Entry-Orbit 1, Orbit 2 and Planning teams. Generally, the STS-34 crew's working day is split between the Orbit 1 and Orbit 2 shifts.

For STS-34, the ascent phase will be conducted by Flight Director Ronald D. Dittemore. Once Atlantis is in orbit, this same shift, operating from about 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CDT each day, is known as the Orbit 1 team and also will be led by Flight Director Dittemore. Because the shifts overlap in this manner, some of the flight control positions will be staffed by the same personnel for both Ascent/Entry and Orbit 1 operations. Other positions will alternate between specialists in launch/landing activities and orbital operations. The Orbit 2 team, led by Lead Flight Director Milt Heflin, will be on-console each day from around 2:30 to 11:30 p.m. CDT. The Orbit 2 team has primary responsibility for the deploy of the Galileo spacecraft on Flight Day One. The Planning Team, led by Flight Director Robert E. Castle, Jr., will be on-console from about 10:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. CDT each day. The Planning shift, which for the most part operates during the crew's sleep period, has the dual responsibility for monitoring the systems aboard Atlantis and updating schedules or coordinating any changes in the flight plan as may be dictated by real-time mission events. (Brian Welch, October 4, 1989 – JSC NASA News Release No. 89-054)
« Last Edit: 10/16/2012 07:04 pm by Ares67 »

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #17 on: 10/16/2012 07:06 pm »
VEEGA – Taking the long road

(Source: David M. Harland: “Jupiter Odyssey,” Springer/Praxis 2000, and Countdown, October 1989)

In 1972, when NASA set out to develop the shuttle as the “National Space Transportation System,” it had several interplanetary spacecraft at the planning stage. It was expected that the shuttle would enter flight-test in 1978 and become operational within a year, at which time it would supersede conventional expendable rockets, so all spacecraft scheduled for launch in the 1980s were to be designed to ride the shuttle. The Ames Research Center’s two Pioneers had just been launched towards Jupiter, and the logical follow-on mission seemed to be to put a spacecraft into orbit around the giant planet and drop a probe into the atmosphere. In 1975, Ames was authorized to start developing this Pioneer Orbiter and Probe, for launch in January 1982. In an administrative shake-out a few months later, however, NASA reassigned responsibility for all new planetary spacecraft to the Jet Propulsion laboratory, and the project was transferred from Mountain View to Pasadena.

Although at that time the Voyagers were still being constricted, JPL had already started to plan a follow-on mission with a spacecraft entering Jovian orbit in order to explore the planet’s atmosphere, its magnetosphere, and its family of satellites. Ames’ spacecraft was to have been another “spinner” configured for sensing particles and fields, with only a limited capability for imaging. The Voyagers were three-axis stabilized, so JPL’s design was stabilized and carried high-resolution imaging instruments. As a compromise, a spacecraft combining spinning and non-spinning sections was devised. Despun antenna mounts were utilized by communications satellites, so this two-part vehicle involved low technological risk. However, the compromise resulted in a larger vehicle than either Center would have developed on its own. Although this transformed the spacecraft into a heavyweight, the shuttle had been publicized as a spacefaring truck, so this was not considered to be an issue. The integrated project was labeled “Voyager Jupiter Orbiter and Probe” in 1976 and approved by Congress in October 1977 on the heels of the successful launches of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 a few months earlier and the marvelously successful first landings on Mars by Viking 1 and 2 in the summer of 1976. Born in an age of great ambitions and commitment, the new project was renamed “Galileo” in 1978.

JPL accepted the 1982 launch window given to Ames because this would permit Galileo to make a close pass by Mars en route. This would make the cruise a little longer and slip the arrival at Jupiter from 1984 to 1985, but the gravitational slingshot would enable Galileo to carry a larger propellant tank for its primary mission. However, this decision also took the overall mass of the spacecraft – and the rocket stage that would boost it out of Earth orbit – to the extreme limit of the shuttle’s predicted payload capacity. As spacecraft development proceeded, it became apparent that the shuttle would not fly in 1978, but NASA was confident that the shuttle would fly in 1979 and JPL was assured that the manifest would be reordered to enable Galileo to launch on schedule. Unfortunately, the shuttle’s main engines and thermal protection suffered protracted development problems. In July 1979 the agency finally acknowledged that the shuttle would be lucky to start flying by 1980 and informed JPL that it could not be certain of launching Galileo in 1982.

Slipping the launch would mean that Galileo would not be able to use a Mars flyby to pick up energy. The spacecraft was to be sent on its way by a three-stage “planetary” version of the Inertial Upper Stage. This was not powerful enough, on its own, to send Galileo all the way to Jupiter. The logical solution would have been to transfer Galileo to the Titan-Centaur, the most powerful expendable launcher in the inventory, and use the 1982 window. However, a cost-benefit analysis used to justify the development of the shuttle had relied on a busy flight schedule to force down operational overheads. Off-loading a payload as prestigious as Galileo would set  a poor precedent, and JPL was ordered to strip Galileo to suit the IUS’ capabilities. By this point, however, it was also obvious that the initial configuration of the shuttle would not meet its planned cargo capacity. This meant JPL’s task was not simply a matter of refitting the smaller propellant tanks, but scientific instruments would also have to be omitted. A few months later, NASA suggested that if the probe could be sectioned off and paired with a simple carrier of its own, so that each could be sent directly to Jupiter on its own three-stage IUS, then JPL could have two shuttle launches in 1984.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #18 on: 10/16/2012 07:10 pm »
Other forces were at work, however, and by the end of 1979 NASA was under pressure to develop a more powerful planetary stage for the shuttle. The IUS had been developed for the shuttle by the Department of Defense. It had specified a rocket which burned solid propellant so that it would be simple to operate. However, a solid-propellant rocket engine is not as effective as one that burns high-energy liquids. The shuttle’s prime function was to ferry mass into low orbit, so it seemed sensible to make every kilogram count. The high-performance Centaur had proved itself as an upper stage for the Atlas and Titan launchers. Surely, it should be possible to adapt the Centaur for carriage in the shuttle’s bay? The Centaur’s performance derived from the fact that it burned hydrogen and oxygen. The use of cryogenic propellants would make the Centaur a much more difficult payload to service on the shuttle, but it would be worth it. The three-stage IUS was cancelled in December 1980 and, one month later, Congress cancelled the two-stage variant of the IUS that had been intended to put heavy communications satellites into geostationary orbit. In January 1981, the agency was told to adapt the Centaur for use with the shuttle. The Centaur would be able to send the complete Galileo spacecraft straight to Jupiter, but as it would take time to adapt the Centaur, Galileo’s launch was slipped to 1985 by which time, on the original plan, the spacecraft should have been starting its exploration of the Jovian system.

Although JPL made excellent progress, its work was being undermined by NASA politics. The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, had supervised NASA’s interest in the IUS. The Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, had developed the Centaur together with General Dynamics. Deleting the IUS in favor of the Centaur was a boon to Lewis, but it hurt Marshall, so lobbyists set to work. In November 1981, Congress reversed itself – the Centaur was out, the IUS was reinstated, and Galileo was once again in trouble. But General Dynamics had lobbyists, California’s economy was dominated by aerospace, and Congressional elections were due in 1982. The Centaur was therefore reinstated in July 1982, but this time the IUS was not cancelled. Both stages would be built in order to provide operational flexibility. Galileo was finally saved, but the time wasted by the political maneuvering had delayed the Centaur so much that the launch was sipped once again, this time to the May 1986 window (opportunities for the direct route occurred at 13-month intervals), leading to a December 1988 arrival at Jupiter.

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Re: Atlantis STS-34 – Eppur si muove!
« Reply #19 on: 10/16/2012 07:13 pm »
Galileo was paying a stiff price for its brief ride into orbit aboard the shuttle. Nevertheless, it had fared better than several other projects that had been cancelled outright and their budgets devoured by the shuttle’s overruns. The policy of forcing all payloads onto the shuttle was playing havoc with the space science program. Instead of the shuttle picking up the load in a vibrant program, delays and cancellations were killing off its customers. In this phase of its development, the shuttle was a predatory beast. It finally flew in April 1981. After its fourth test flight, it was declared operational in 1982. Meanwhile, Galileo’s development proceeded apace. Once committed to the Centaur, JPL allowed Galileo to grow to take full advantage of this stage’s capacity. No longer constrained by a Mars slingshot, the navigators sought targets of opportunity for its passage through the asteroid belt – a flyby of 29 Amphitrite was possible on December 6, 1986. No asteroid has yet been inspected close-up, so this first would be a welcome scientific bonus.

On January 28, 1986, Galileo was at the Kennedy Space Center, ready to be mated with its Centaur, preparatory for launch aboard Atlantis on May 21. Although the countdown for Challenger STS 51-L was running on NASA TV, most of the JPL staffers were preoccupied by events much further away. Voyager 2 had finally reached the planet Uranus, and amazing images of its moons were streaming in. The press was present in force, and the scientists were preparing a major presentation. Before this could start, however, the shuttle “malfunctioned,” killing its crew. In the aftermath of the disaster JPL was instructed to prepare Galileo for the next Jovian launch window, in June 1987, on the assumption that by then the shuttle would be back in service. The spacecraft was returned to JPL, stripped down, and placed into storage. Within months, however, NASA decided that it would no longer run the shuttle’s main engines at their 109 percent maximum thrust, which posed a problem for Galileo as it meant that the shuttle would not be able to lift a Centaur with Galileo mounted on its nose.

In the light of this, JPL decided to fly a Centaur with a partial propellant load, and to make up the energy deficit by a gravitational slingshot. Mars was no longer favorably placed, but a close flyby of the earth would be sufficient. In this revised scheme, the Centaur would boost Galileo out on a long ellipse that would produce a return to Earth, so that this encounter would extend the spacecraft’s aphelion and send it all the way to Jupiter. The roundabout route – dubbed the Earth Gravity Assist (EGA) – would see Galileo-as-built to Jupiter, but the initial loop to the asteroid belt would add three years to its flight time.


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