Author Topic: Shuttle Tile identification  (Read 143620 times)

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #140 on: 03/26/2017 06:20 pm »
That is a great tile seeing as it is a space flown tile.

I couldn't find that specific number but I found some of the other 193017-4xx tiles on the inside edge of the outer starboard elevon. Based on the shape of your tile and that the damage assessments show us the underside in detail, I'd have to make an educated guess that your tile came from the top edge somewhere in the line shown in the image below.

Offline WhiteHat

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #141 on: 03/29/2017 09:58 pm »
Thanks for the help.  Area I was thinking too.  Sure wish the complete detailed "maps" were available and could be posted for all somewhere.  Would REALLY be interesting!! Sure would help all in locating too.  Thanks again!!

Offline Hotdog876

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #142 on: 05/10/2017 06:21 pm »
Hi all,

I have a tile I would like to find out more information on. It is a black 6" x 6" square and has a rather odd number:

VT70-006006-020-001009 BOTTOM D

All I've been able to gather is that this is a test tile, and likely was meant to go on the bottom of the orbiter.

My questions are, what do the other numbers mean? Can we tell where the tile would have went specifically, or which orbiter it might have been used with? What dates/time period was this test tile in use?

Any information at all would be greatly appreciated.


Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #143 on: 05/10/2017 07:49 pm »
Hi all,

I have a tile I would like to find out more information on. It is a black 6" x 6" square and has a rather odd number:

VT70-006006-020-001009 BOTTOM D

All I've been able to gather is that this is a test tile, and likely was meant to go on the bottom of the orbiter.

My questions are, what do the other numbers mean? Can we tell where the tile would have went specifically, or which orbiter it might have been used with? What dates/time period was this test tile in use?

Any information at all would be greatly appreciated.

As best as I can tell VT tiles are tiles for non-flight uses (testing, engineering, training, etc.). There doesn't seem to be any good information out there about these sorts of tiles though.

In all likelihood it was made from an existing template for a shuttle tile, and the 6x6 size is very common for tiles from the underside. Tiles were also made to be universal between orbiters (I think there's a handful of rare cases of variation among the 25,000 tiles though).

Time period is hard to pin down without any paperwork. I understand that in general tiles with solid number printing are from later in program and tiles with numbers made up in a kind of dot-matrix appearance are from earlier in the program.

Offline Chris Bergin

Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #144 on: 05/17/2017 10:33 am »
A reminder to keep an eye out for this stolen hardware being put on sale (which I guess could be around this period now the story has eased away from people's minds)....

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42715.0

Would be nice to catch the fool in the act.
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Offline OV135

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #145 on: 08/04/2017 11:30 pm »
I like the tile map diagrams. I've only seen these on press briefings.  Will there be a PDF version of these maps for research and model reference?  I know it's on L2, but what of a version for those not part of L2?

Offline AirmanPika

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #146 on: 08/11/2017 12:11 pm »
I like the tile map diagrams. I've only seen these on press briefings.  Will there be a PDF version of these maps for research and model reference?  I know it's on L2, but what of a version for those not part of L2?

Unfortunately I've not seen any 100% views of the tile maps. Unless something new cropped up on L2 in the last few years all we have are the partial views that showed up in press and technical reports. Its obvious there is a complete map for each orbiter somewhere but never made public.

Offline Press2MECO

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #147 on: 08/22/2017 02:35 pm »
I like the tile map diagrams. I've only seen these on press briefings.  Will there be a PDF version of these maps for research and model reference?  I know it's on L2, but what of a version for those not part of L2?

Does this mean that there are complete Tile ID maps available on L2?
It's been awhile since I've subscribed, but I'd be willing to join back up, if only for a complete Tile Map.
Guess I'm also curious as to what sort of post-shuttle documents have since shown up since retirement.

More to the point, and in order to make this post relevant in the potential absence of a full tile map still, I'm looking for the location of the following tile ID:
V070-395016-180 638196

Best I'm able to tell it's located on the top of the Body flap, likely near where the body-flap interfaces with the aft fuselage.
I've seen one tile map that showed where tile -181 is located (LH side of bodyflap), but looking for location of -180.

Thanks!
« Last Edit: 08/22/2017 02:36 pm by Press2MECO »

Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #148 on: 11/20/2017 09:41 pm »
Still looking for location info on these three - received by a school...

Thin White tile - V070-391143-204 JG0877  - SCRAP in red
Thick White tile 64642     10574
Thick Black tile VT70-191037-027   MN0101346

I realize this is years old, but I also just received a tile with a 64642, mine is 64642 11503 L .  Wondering if anyone has solved this mystery.

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #149 on: 11/21/2017 01:09 am »
I still do do check people's requests. If I don't offer a reply it's because I had no luck. But since this thread especially pulls in members from other places online I suppose I should explain a little about what's going on and what I and others have done to help.

The shuttles were all covered in a variety of Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) including blankets, RCC, inconel, and even ablatives. In this case what everyone is thinking about is the silica tiles. The uncovered portions have a look and feel a little like styrofoam. They can be covered in a white, or more commonly black outer coating. Every single part on the shuttles had a alpha-numeric code including all of the parts of the TPS. The codes for parts would start with VO70 (Vee Ohh Seven Zero). The first part stands for "Vehicle, Orbiter" while the "70"signifies the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Presumably if another similar craft or updated version had been developed it would have gotten a different numeric designation. The TPS codes seem to start with a 1, 2, or 3. They would have a 6 digit code which would show what region of the orbiter it was on, and a following 2 or 3 digit number would be the unique tile location. There's a few very rare cases of actual shuttle tiles that break this system.

Some tiles don't follow this system. Some have a designation of a seemingly random number, or a VT70 prefix, an "ENG" prefix, or other possible variations. While probably using an existing tile pattern these weren't likely intended for flight but rather for some form of ground testing.

So what are members on here doing to help people find their tile locations? They're using resources on the paid L2 side of the site. What we don't have there is a complete map of the entire orbiter with every tile location. I have heard people have also attempted to FOIA request a tile map from NASA with no luck either receiving replies saying they don't seem to exist. While they obviously existed at some point they were either destroyed or were perhaps only held by a private corporation such as United Space Alliance. What L2 does have are files that contain portions of these tiles maps, mostly in the form of damage assessments of the TPS from various missions. These have notable failings. L2 only has TPS reports from after the Return to Flight. Columbia and Challenger had both been lost by this point and both had many more tiles than Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour so any tile specifically associated with those two orbiters we have little insight into. The damage assessments also, obviously, focus on damage. This means damage prone areas like the nose, the OMS pods, and parts of the underside are well represented. This also means areas generally protected from damage during launch like the top of the body flap, areas around the engines, and some other areas are completely lacking in reports. Therefore nothing for us to reference.

Lastly, was your tile flown? Some giveaways would be the red bonding agent still being present on the back, or a pinhole in the front with a little white circle around it. These aren't always present on a flown tile though. But the best way to tell is if the tile is still a clean pure black or white coating then it's probably not flown. A single reentry would tend to discolor them at least some. If it's a tile NASA gave to a school a few years ago then it's almost certainly an unflown tile.

Offline Chris Bergin

Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #150 on: 11/26/2017 12:23 pm »
Skipped through recent posts, so may have lost context, but if there is a tile number that a L2 resource can identify, members here can pass that on into the public side. Just so everyone knows.

Meanwhile....

A reminder to keep an eye out for this stolen hardware being put on sale (which I guess could be around this period now the story has eased away from people's minds)....

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42715.0

Would be nice to catch the fool in the act.

Did that ever get resolved?
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Offline earthfolk

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #151 on: 03/25/2019 02:06 pm »
Hi,

I have a Shuttle tile that is said to have been removed from Columbia in 1982

Can anyone here help me locate it on the Orbiter?

(Cut off top left Corner) then it reads:

70-193012
-151 -8213

301-000M

Thanks in advance!

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #152 on: 03/26/2019 08:18 pm »
Your tile was (or was intended to be, I can't verify if it flew or not) located on the starboard (right) wing outer elevon. It's location is noted by the light green in the attached images.


Offline earthfolk

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #153 on: 03/27/2019 12:28 pm »
Thank you rayleighscatter!

Offline [email protected]

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #154 on: 05/19/2019 12:53 pm »
any knowledge of this tile?

V070-395004-023-008602 Or -808602

Offline Fequalsma

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #155 on: 05/19/2019 10:53 pm »
Are the lat/lon where that tile was found?
F=ma


any knowledge of this tile?

V070-395004-023-008602 Or -808602

Offline SWGlassPit

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #156 on: 05/20/2019 04:06 pm »
On digging a little further, the number on that tile does not appear to correspond to the shape on the drawing.  The tile in the photo appears to be 6 inches by 6 inches, but that part number should be a 3 inch by 6 inch tile (confirmed with photos from later flights).

To be sure, this shows no signs of being flown.  No waterproofing injection circles, no reentry flow streaks.

Offline SWGlassPit

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #157 on: 05/20/2019 04:50 pm »
Digging EVEN deeper: I highly suspect this is a "Tiles for Teachers" tile and not a "real" flight tile: https://web.archive.org/web/20160101200008/https://artifacts.nasa.gov/tile_serial_numbers.htm

A couple notes:

 - Flight tiles have their part numbers stenciled on (see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Shuttle_Endeavour_Tile_damage_Aug_12-2007.jpg).  I'm unaware of any flight tiles that use this dot matrix style of printing.

 - The first characters of the tile in the photo are VO70, which corresponds to the link above.  The problem is that their explanation is incorrect.  "V" does indeed mean "Vehicle End Item", but the second character should be a "0" (zero), not an "O".  The choices are "0", "C", "D", "K", "P", "R", "S", and "T".  "0" in this case means "Production Configuration".  The next digits refer to it being an orbiter drawing -- "70" refers to the orbiter.   Other choices are 72 through 76 and 82.

 - As I mentioned before, the size of the tile is wrong for the part number.

Sorry to say, this isn't a "real" tile -- it's most likely an artifact produced from tile stock for NASA to distribute at the end of the program.

Offline woods170

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #158 on: 05/20/2019 06:23 pm »
Digging EVEN deeper: I highly suspect this is a "Tiles for Teachers" tile and not a "real" flight tile: https://web.archive.org/web/20160101200008/https://artifacts.nasa.gov/tile_serial_numbers.htm

A couple notes:

 - Flight tiles have their part numbers stenciled on (see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Shuttle_Endeavour_Tile_damage_Aug_12-2007.jpg).  I'm unaware of any flight tiles that use this dot matrix style of printing.

 - The first characters of the tile in the photo are VO70, which corresponds to the link above.  The problem is that their explanation is incorrect.  "V" does indeed mean "Vehicle End Item", but the second character should be a "0" (zero), not an "O".  The choices are "0", "C", "D", "K", "P", "R", "S", and "T".  "0" in this case means "Production Configuration".  The next digits refer to it being an orbiter drawing -- "70" refers to the orbiter.   Other choices are 72 through 76 and 82.

 - As I mentioned before, the size of the tile is wrong for the part number.

Sorry to say, this isn't a "real" tile -- it's most likely an artifact produced from tile stock for NASA to distribute at the end of the program.

Agreed that the tile isn't a flight tile. It reminded me of something I had seen on an old picture. So, I dug into my archives and low and behold I found a picture of a similar tile with dot matrix printing.

Image is from a very early STS program TPS tile. Those tiles were distributed to interested parties in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The museum where I'm a volunteer has one in its inventory. It's shown in the image below.
« Last Edit: 05/20/2019 06:24 pm by woods170 »

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Shuttle Tile identification
« Reply #159 on: 05/20/2019 10:04 pm »
I haven't had a chance to research the number yet, but that style of tile is a legitimate style used during a portion of the shuttle program. Attached is a close up photo I took of Discovery a few years ago. Many of the tiles have that style of numbering (some have been re-inked in different styles too).

 

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