Atlantis STS-27 – Battered and Bruised

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December 7: ATLANTIS CREW GETS WARM WELCOME IN HOUSTON AT END OF SECRET MISSION
The military crew of the shuttle Atlantis returned to the Johnson Space Center early Wednesday and thanked a cheering crowd of about 300-500 for their support. "I can't believe you're all out here at one o'clock in the morning," said skipper Robert "Hoot" Gibson. "This is incredible. I really expected we were going to arrive and hop right into the cars and drive home. But thank you very much for coming out to say hi,” Hoot told the crowd. Gibson said the crew was a "very visible, small representation of the Johnson Space Center and the overall NASA effort. We're the lucky five who got to go have the great experience and get to go have all the fun, which was the culmination of an awful lot of hard work by an awful lot of people and we appreciate them."

JSC Director Aaron Cohen greeted the crew and told the crowd, which included the astronauts' families, that the previous Discovery flight "returned us to safe flight and it was a fantastic mission."But STS-27 was a superb mission and we needed that mission, also," Cohen said. “To the STS-27 crew, it’s no secret, we’re glad to have you back.”All the astronauts spoke briefly but revealed nothing about the mission that sources said put a spy satellite in orbit over the Soviet Union.

Atlantis played to an all-but-empty house when it returned to Earth late Tuesday. Only the news media, base workers and 125 invited guests were on hand, a far cry from the 425,000 that that greeted the shuttle Discovery when it landed in October. “I appreciate all the work everybody here has done for us. It was easy with all the fine training and equipment that we had. I think we did a good job for NASA and the space program, and I think we did some good things for our country as well," said rookie co-pilot Guy Gardner.

STS-27 Mission Specialist Mike Mullane echoed Hoot Gibson, “Well, you’re all going to get tired of hearing the same thing, but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity to fly on a beautiful rocket ship and, like Hoot says, it wasn’t us going out there and doing that, we just had the superb and wonderful privilege of climbing aboard,” he said. "I wish all of you who would've liked to have gone on that ride could've gone on it," said Mullane. "I suspect anyone who comes out here at one o'clock in the morning would've liked to have gone on that ride."

Jerry Ross said the flight was "absolutely amazing and exciting, something that if we tried all night we'd never be able to explain the feelings and the sights that we saw. I'm looking forward to getting into the office the next day or so and start working to get the next flights going."

William Shepherd, the first member of astronaut class of 1984 to fly aboard the shuttle, added: “I just can’t thank the troops here at JSC enough.” He said it was a "great mission. It was really right down the pipe, really nominal from what we expected." (Deseret News, Dec. 7, 1988 and JSC Space News Roundup, Dec. 9, 1988 – edited)

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Daddy is back! Look how Paul Seddon Gibson (6) has grown since February 1984... 

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BATTERED TILES NOT EXPECTED TO DELAY NEXT ATLANTIS FLIGHT
The Atlantis returned from its four-day secret space mission more bruised than normal, but the damage is not severe enough to delay its next scheduled launch, NASA says. Up to 175 thermal tiles were heavily damaged, apparently during liftoff, possibly by something loose hitting the orbiter, said Conrad Nagel, Atlantis' processing director."The damage comparatively is significant, but it's not a major concern," he said Wednesday. "We have to understand why we had this damage and keep it from happening again."

Nagel said the damage would be easy to fix and that it would not affect Atlantis' next flight, scheduled for launch April 28 with a spacecraft that is to be dispatched to the planet Venus. Overall, he said, Atlantis returned from its classified military mission on Tuesday in "very clean" shape. There were only a few minor technical problems during the flight, he said. One entailed a minor malfunction in the shuttle's air conditioning system, causing about a gallon of water to leak into the cabin. The astronauts used a vacuum cleaner to clean it up, Nagel said.

During the flight, the five astronauts inspected and assessed the battered tiles, using a television camera on the end of the ship's 50-foot robot arm, Nagel said. The shuttle is covered with about 28,000 tiles made of various materials designed to protect it from atmospheric re-entry heat. He said the tile damage posed no threat to the shuttle's return to Earth.Nagel said the heaviest damage was concentrated in a strip 3 to 4 feet long "down the right hand side, along the line of the fuselage." One tile in the nose was missing and "it looked like it was popped off by the impact of something," he said. There was speculation here that a part from the solid fuel booster rockets, the external tank or the orbiter might have fallen off and hit the craft. Nagel said he did not want to speculate. A small fiberglass panel was missing from one of Atlantis' maneuvering engines, but this probably did not cause the problem, officials said.

Nagel made his comments in an interview from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where he leads a team that is inspecting Atlantis and preparing it for return to the Kennedy Space Center here Tuesday atop a Boeing 747 airliner. He said Atlantis' tile damage was about twice that suffered by Discovery, which made the first post-Challenger shuttle flight two months ago. (Deseret News, Dec. 8, 1988)



RIGHT STUFF: BUT GARN REJECTS IDEA OF ASSUMING NASA JOB
Rumors are blasting off that Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, might just have the right stuff to become the new NASA administrator. His name tops some lists in the Washington rumor mills of possible candidates to replace current Administrator James Fletcher, a former University of Utah president who has said he plans to leave after a replacement is found. But Garn told the Deseret News that he has more down-to-earth plans, namely remaining in the Senate to fight for the space program there - and maybe even to fight for Cabinet-level status and access for whoever does become the administrator.

Garn, who once flew on the space shuttle Discovery as a congressional observer, said, "Even if the job were offered, I would not accept. I can do more good for the space program as a senior member of the Senate than as the administrator. I probably spend a third of my time on space, science and technology." Garn said the first he had heard of the rumors was through a phone call from the Deseret News. He said he also has had no contact with anyone from the Bush administration about the possibility.

But the speculation about him had been circulating this week at least among the Florida and Alabama congressional delegations. They are especially concerned about NASA because of the Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Some in those offices say that with the Atlantis mission this week, NASA now has had two near-perfect space shuttle flights - showing that current administrator Fletcher used his technical expertise to accomplish his goal of safely returning his agency to space after the Challenger disaster. But they say the next administrator must also have extensive political skills to combat what Jeff Bingham, Garn's administrative assistant, calls the "largely unrealized funding crisis at NASA."

Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the only other congressional observer to fly on a space shuttle, released a statement about who he thinks has such political and administrative skills. "I would suggest someone like Sen. Jake Garn," Nelson said - high praise from a Democrat. Nelson outlined for the Gannett News Service the skills he felt the new administrator should have - and which he said Garn possesses. "The new administrator should be someone who is politically well connected so that he has access to the Oval Office and senior White House staff," Nelson said. "He also must have a good rapport with Congress. He should have a talent for picking talented people to help run a research and development agency and certainly should have a strong background in the space field."

Others mentioned as possibilities by various congressional staff and observers include Martin Marietta Aerospace Corp. executive Norman Augustine; J.R. Thompson, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center; Robert Crippen, former astronaut and deputy director of shuttle operations; and Sally Ride, physicist and first American woman in space. Also under consideration are Frank Borman, former astronaut and former president of Eastern Airlines; William Graham, science adviser to President Reagan and former NASA administrator; Thomas Paine, former NASA administrator; Jim McDivitt, former astronaut now with Rockwell International; and David Webb, chairman of the University of North Dakota's Space Studies Department.

Of those names, Garn said he knows Crippen and Ride well and said they would do fine but that Crippen had more administrative experience. He said he was unfamiliar or had only casual acquaintances with most of the others. Some in Washington have said that finding an administrator may not be easy with funding problems the agency faces and its loss of prestige after the Challenger disaster, but Garn is not among them.

"NASA is still in my opinion one of the premier agencies of the federal government and has the greatest collection of scientific minds the government has ever employed. Despite the Challenger accident, there's still a lot of people who would love to have that job and are very well qualified," Garn said. He said whoever gets the job should be given more free access to the president. "Ask Fletcher; I think he would tell you he has much less access now than when he was administrator in the '70s. The administrator has to work through an aide who may not know that much, and it is frustrating."

Garn even suggests putting the NASA administrator in charge of a Cabinet-level Department of Space, Sciences and Technology to oversee better American competition in science and space. He said the high rank for such a department is not frivolous "when you consider the importance of the technological base of this country to our pre-eminence in the world and how we are losing it to Japan, West Germany and the Soviet Union." He said that issue is at least as important as those overseen by the departments of Veterans Affairs, Interior and Commerce - "and maybe even more important as far as looking toward the future of our country and where we are in relation to the world," he said. Bingham, Garn's administrative assistant, said that raising the NASA administrator to Cabinet level could also make it easier to attract high-level officials - such as senators or corporate presidents - to the job. (Deseret News, Dec. 8, 1988)



ATLANTIS TILE DAMAGE EXTENSIVE
Atlantis had up to 175 thermal tiles damaged on its STS-27 mission; the damage apparently occurred during liftoff when something loose struck the orbiter, according to Shuttle Processing Director Conrad Nagel. "The damage comparatively is significant, but it's not a major concern," Nagel said today. "We have to understand why we had this damage and keep it from happening again. He said the heaviest damage was confined to a strip three to four feet in length "down the right hand side, along the line of the fuselage." He said that a single tile in the nose was missing and "it looked like it was popped off by the impact of something." Nagel said that the Atlantis had suffered about twice the damage that Discovery received two months ago. "It appears that between 125 and 175 tiles will have to be scrapped and replaced." In addition scores of tiles with scratches and "dings" will have to be repaired in place.

A Solid Rocket Booster expert said today that strips of cork covering instrumentation on Atlantis' SRB's may have come loose during lift-off and damaged the tiles. The damage was inspected in space by the shuttle crew using a television camera on the end of the orbiter's robot arm. Launch film shows debris falling away from the shuttle some two minutes and ten seconds into flight, just after the SRB's were jettisoned. Cork also came loose on Discovery's mission under similar circumstances. An investigation team will be in place by the time Atlantis returns from California next week.

The landing recovery team was slowed by high winds at Edwards Air Force Base and is now some eight hours behind schedule, according to Kennedy Space Center spokesman Karl Kristofferson. (The New York Times, The Orlando Sentinel & Florida Today, Dec. 8 & 9, 1988)

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December 8: A DARK DAY FOR MY HOMETOWN
A United States Air Force warplane plowed into a residential area of a West German city today, demolishing apartment buildings and leaving at least 4 people dead and 40 injured. The crash, in the city of Remscheid, was certain to increase West German unhappiness with the training of NATO pilots and troops on German territory. The West German Defense Minister, Rupert Scholz, reportedly cut short a visit to Washington and was heading back to handle the government's response to the accident. Air Force spokesmen had no immediate information on the cause of the crash. They said only that the plane, an A-10A close-support jet, had been on a routine training mission out of the West German air base at Norvenich, 40 miles west of Remscheid.

The two-engine, single-pilot craft's specialty is attacking tanks. West German spokesmen said the plane had taken off with 17 others to practice low flying over another area and began to spew flames about a mile and a half from Remscheid, an industrial city of 125,000 about 25 miles east of Dusseldorf.

The police said the pilot was among those killed, and they said they expected to find more bodies as they searched through the smoldering rubble of a dozen apartment buildings. They said the search was hampered by continuing fires and explosions of 30-mm cannon rounds, which continued to detonate for hours after the crash.

The United States Air Force suspended all tactical training flights until next Tuesday. West Germany announced that it was suspending all low-level training flights until the end of the year and called on its allies to do likewise. Training flights by American and other allied air forces over West Germany have become an increasingly sensitive issue in recent years. Objections have been raised to the noise of low-level training flights, which are a fixture of Allied training over West Germany, and to the frequent crashes. Some 20 American F-16 fighter planes alone have crashed over the past seven years.

Public discontent was galvanized Aug. 28, when a plane piloted by a member of the Italian Air Force precision flying team “Frecce Tricolori” plunged into a crowd of spectators at the American air base at Ramstein, killing 70 people, most of them Germans. The disaster touched off a heated debate over the limitations on German control over Allied activities in West German territory. The Remscheid disaster was certain to revive the controversy, especially given its juxtaposition with Mikhail S. Gorbachev's speech at the United Nations on Wednesday pledging a large reduction of Soviet forces in Europe. (The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1988 - edited)

FOG MAY BE FACTOR IN REMSCHEID THUNDERBOLT CRASH
The West German air force chief said Friday the pilot of a U.S. Thunderbolt anti-tank plane that crashed into a city north of the capital Bonn Thursday may have become disoriented as he climbed his jet out of fog. The pilot and four residents of Remscheid, a city 40 miles north of Bonn, died when the A-10 jet crashed into a row of 20 houses. One more body was recovered Friday, raising the death toll to five. One person was still missing. Police corrected an earlier report that two more bodies had been found Friday.

The pilot of the twin-engine jet, Capt. Michael P. Foster, 34, of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, was found dead Thursday in his ejector seat, authorities said. About 50 people were injured when the plane, known as a Thunderbolt, crashed into the city of 125,000, triggering fires that raged for hours, a police spokesman said. Nine people were still hospitalized, three with serious burns.

The West German air force chief-of-staff, Lt. Gen. Horst Jungkurth, said at a news conference that pilot error may have caused the accident because, he said, the Thunderbolt was the safest U.S. Air Force plane in service and chances of a technical fault were very small. "The plane was climbing when it began to crash," Jungkurth said. "That is the usual procedure when encountering fog. The pilot in climbing might have lost his orientation. But that is just speculation." He said he could not confirm statements by witnesses that the plane was on fire as it descended into Remscheid before it crashed.

The crash prompted new demands for a ban on low-level NATO training flights or their curtailment, but Jungkurth said the A-10 had been flying at a height of over 3,000 feet. Remscheid Mayor Willi Hartkopf said he supported the growing campaign against low level training flights, which the government has said are necessary for defense. "We have been fighting in vain against these training flights for three to four years," Hartkopf said. "Low-flying planes thunder over the city again and again."

Hans-Jochen Vogel, the chairman of the opposition Social Democrats, demanded Friday the banning of low-level training flights "without any qualification." Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Winfried Dunkel said at the same news conference that U.S. Ambassador Richard Burt had assured Defense Minister Rupert Scholz the U.S. Air Force would accept the ministry's request to halt all low-level flights for the rest of the year. Dunkel said Belgium and Holland also had agreed to halt their flights and he expected Britain, France and Canada to agree too. He said the training flights would resume Jan. 2. He added Scholz already had ordered a reduction in West German flights. Scholz was criticized by the Social Democrats for not banning the U.S. air show at Ramstein Air Base in August in which three Italian stunt planes crashed, killing 70 people. A public prosecutor in the city of Wuppertal, near Remscheid, announced Friday he will investigate the crash to see whether the United States could be charged with responsibility for the deaths. (Deseret News, Dec. 9, 1988)

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AND ONLY THIRTEEN DAYS LATER…
In the end, including the pilot, there were six casualties in Remscheid – among them the grandmother of a high school friend of mine; at the time of the accident that friend and I both were together on military duty in Hannover. – This certainly had been a dark day for my hometown, resulting in terror and grief for all people involved. But it was an unfortunate accident, limited to a relatively small part of the city. But then, before the year 1988 came to an end, the small town of Lockerbie in south-western Scotland would suffer a similar, yet much more terrible fate of much larger dimensions – and this time it would be a cowardly terrorist attack. On December 21, following a bomb explosion on Pan Am Flight 103, burning wreckage would crash into the town of Lockerbie. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard the Boeing 747 “Clipper Maid of the Sea” and eleven residents on the ground would be killed during this terrible event.

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OBERG CYNICAL ABOUT GORBACHEV’S PROPOPSAL
According to a Florida Today article, space expert James Oberg says that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposal for a World Space Organization to maintain a peaceful environment in space, issued during his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, should be taken cautiously. Oberg says, “I’d certainly be cynical about any grandiose plan for a new organization to verify treaty compliance when they can’t even obey the laws of existing organizations.” (Countdown, February 1989 – edited)

December 9: TILE DAMAGE INVESTIGATION
NASA is still searching for people to serve on a team investigating the tile damage suffered by Atlantis on the STS-27 mission. The Tile Damage Assessment Team will review film of the Dec. 2 launch; the film shows debris - possibly ice, a strut, or cork insulation from SRB's – moving away from the Shuttle just after the Solid Rocket Boosters separated from the shuttle and External Tank. (Florida Today, Dec. 10, 1988)

ATLANTIS' O-RING SEALS “WORKED GREAT”
The Space Shuttle Atlantis' two solid-fuel boosters, equipped with redesigned post-Challenger O-ring seals, appear to have "worked great" during launch Dec. 2, a top NASA manager said Friday.

Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, meanwhile, reports in its Dec. 12 issue that Atlantis's astronauts launched a secret "Lacrosse" spy satellite the same day they blasted off and initially ran into problems getting the $500 million spacecraft's solar panels to open."The Lacrosse satellite's massive solar arrays initially failed to unfold when commanded to swing open after the spacecraft was deployed from the shuttle," the magazine said. "The deployment occurred during the fifth orbit, about seven hours after launch. Defense managers feared the mission might fail, but a second set of radio commands freed the solar arrays."

As for Atlantis's boosters, Royce Mitchell, manager of the shuttle booster project at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said by telephone that a preliminary examination of the big rockets indicates they performed as advertised during the 27th shuttle launch. "They've been inside the motors and everything looks great," Mitchell said, adding that a complete assessment will not be available until the rockets are disassembled for a detailed inspection.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that hot gas made it past an insulation material in the nozzle joints of the rockets used by the shuttle Discovery during the first post-Challenger launch Sept. 29 and that more of the same was expected when engineers finished taking apart the rockets used by Atlantis. But Mitchell, who was quoted in the Journal story, dismissed the issue when asked about it by United Press International. "It's a non-problem," he said, clearly angry. "We don't even have it on our in-flight anomaly list to be addressed and closed prior to the next flight."

Each booster nozzle assembly is made up of five joints. After the joints are assembled, Mitchell said, a rubbery heat-resistant material is injected into small gaps where the joints are located. "We backfill those joints because there's a gap there," Mitchell said. "That gap is there for thermal growth and assembly tolerances. And so as thermal filler, we squirt RTV silicon down in there as kind of a thermal barrier. From time to time, we get gas past that backfill. We've never had O-ring distress and certainly not an O-ring leak or failure or anything. We saw it in our test program." (Deseret News, Dec. 10, 1988)

CHRÉTIEN AND VOLKOV PERFORM EVA
Jean-Loup Chrétien and Alexander Volkov perform a 5 hour 57 minute EVA outside space station Mir. After initial difficulties unfurling a carbon fibre tube structure – a problem solved with a spirited kick by Volkov – the $8 million French ERA experiment, testing erectable space structures, is successfully completed.

December 10: ARIANE KEEPS ON TRUCKING
Arianespace’s target of launching one vehicle per month may have been biting off more than they could chew. In November, Arianespace had planned to launch V27, but delays caused the launch to be postponed until December 9. When all seemed ready for the launch of V27 on December 9, a combination of bad weather and a faulty telemetry unit on the third stage of the launcher led to postponing the flight until December 10. This time Ariane 4 got off the ground successfully. At 7:33 p.m. EST, the Ariane 4 lifted off the pad, beginning the mission designed to place Luxemburg’s Astra 1A and the United Kingdom’s Skynet 4B into space. The flight was the first commercial flight of the Ariane 4, which used the 44LP configuration (two liquid and two solid strap-on boosters) equipped with the company’s dual launch external carrying structure (SPELDA) to boost the satellites into GTO.

Skynet 4B is a telecommunications satellite built for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence by British Aerospace and will be positioned at one degree West. Astra 1A is a medium power direct broadcasting satellite for European coverage, and is the first European private venture in space, according to a news release provided by the Space Information Center. Astra 1A will be positioned at 19.2 degrees East.

Just as a child’s eyes are often too big for his stomach, so were Arianespace’s eyes as the company envisioned 1988. The European launch company had originally planned to launch V28 in December, but had to postpone the launch due to the V27 delays. V28’s lift-off, rescheduled for January 26, 1989, according to Arianespace’s Washington Headquarters, became 1989’s appetizer instead of 1988’s dessert.

So, as country after country strives to acquire their own personal launch facilities in order to gain a piece of the commercial launch bonanza, Arianespace, Inc., with its string od´f successes in 1988, has secured a major portion of the commercial pie and looks forward to 1989 with hopes of acquiring an even larger piece with the expanded capabilities of the Ariane 4. The European launch company has stood up to the hardball space giants in the United States and Soviet Union and is currently gaining ground on the two by pitching their own strong and versatile stable of launch vehicles to the commercial space world. No doubts any longer that they are a major-league competitor. (Countdown, March 1989)

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December 12: WEATHER DELAYS ATLANTIS RETURN
Atlantis' return to Kennedy Space Center was halted by a front of cloudy, windy weather which could also prevent a return on the 13th. The orbiter stopped overnight at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, where it will remain till the weather clears. Meanwhile the Tile Damage Assessment Team has been assembled and will be headed by John Thomas, Marshall Space Flight Center engineer; Thomas also headed the team which oversaw the redesign of the Solid Rocket Booster following the Challenger accident.

Technicians at Kennedy Space Center have disassembled the two SRB's which had flown with Atlantis and found no indication so far of any malfunction. All six main joints of the boosters have been viewed. The boosters' nozzle joints, more complicated than the other joints, will be examined today and tomorrow. (The Orlando Sentinel & Florida Today, Dec. 13, 1988)

December 13: ATLANTIS RETURNS HOME
Atlantis, bolted atop its 747 carrier plane, made a flawless landing on Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility at 2:25 p.m. NASA officials confirmed that more tiles were damaged on Atlantis than on any other successful flight since the shuttle program began in 1981. John Thomas, Special Assistant to the Marshall Space Flight Center Director, said that more than 700 heat-resistant tiles were damaged and one was lost during liftoff. NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone said that the tile damage was the worst in the program's history. Orbiters typically return from missions with 200 to 300 tiles damaged. The previous worst case was 500 tiles damaged on an earlier flight, according to Thomas.

NASA also announced the formation of an 8-member Tile Damage Assessment team to learn what caused the Thermal Protection System problem. NASA Safety Chief George Rodney said the damage was "serious because it is a little bit outside our data base. We want to have a good explanation for it before we fly the next time; we want to try and understand it as early as possible." (The Orlando Sentinel & Florida Today, Dec. 14, 1988)

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IN OTHER NEWS
McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. officials have announced they will build and launch six additional Delta 2 rockets for the Air Force, raising the military total to twenty. +++ NASA says they are unable to find 200 pages missing from one of two bids submitted for a multi-billion dollar contract to build the next generation Space Shuttle booster. The missing pages are from the proposal submitted by the team of Aerojet and Lockheed. Marshall Space Flight Center Director J.R. Thompson says the competition for the $4 billion ASRM contract has not been tainted by that. Thompson says the missing pages occurred in “a few of the copies” submitted and there are enough complete copies of the proposal to complete the evaluation of the proposal. (Countdown, February 1989 – edited)

December 14: TILE REPLACEMENT
At least 155 of 298 damaged tiles on Atlantis must be replaced according to Frank Jones, Thermal Protection System Engineer at Kennedy Space Center. That number may increase if workers find loose tiles or other damage during the post-flight inspection currently going on, said Jones. "We do not think this flight is nearly as bad, although it is one of the worst," said Jones, who has worked every Shuttle mission.

Meanwhile, the theory that cork from the Solid Rocket Boosters might have caused some of the damage has been discounted because the cork in question was located behind the damaged area, according to Rocky Raab, spokesman for Morton Thiokol, the booster manufacturer. "We have almost been completely cleared of causing any damage. However, the jury is still out," Raab said. Jones said, "We will put a concentrated effort on the damaged side."

Conrad Nagel, Processing Director for Atlantis, said today that the flight path that the orbiter took into orbit might have contributed to the damage sustained by the thermal protection system. The stress put on Atlantis by its northeastward flight path might have loosened parts of the Shuttle, creating debris which hit the tiles. Technicians currently working on Columbia may have to be recruited to work on Atlantis’ tile repair in order for the orbiter to meet its April 28 launch date. "It's going to hurt Columbia, but the next bird to fly is going to have priority. That's the way it has always been, and will continue to be," Nagel said. (Florida Today, Dec. 15 & 16, 1988)

December 15: AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS TRACKED ATLANTIS FLIGHT
Amateur astronomers using home computers and high-powered binoculars were able to track the U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis as it deployed a secret spy satellite. "If we could figure it out, you could bet that the Russians figured it out too," says Ted Molczan, a self-described "space enthusiast" who helped organize the tracking.Although he said the information gathered had little practical use, the project showed secrecy is a rare commodity in the sky.

In Washington, David Garrett of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said, "We don't comment on secret satellite launches." Molczan, 35, said in a recent interview that the satellite watchers are hobbyists who work together informally, trading information through telephone calls, letters and electronic mail. The secrecy of the Atlantis' early December mission made their research challenging and intriguing "detective work," Molczan said. "As space enthusiasts, for us to see the space shuttle is a very exciting thing," he said, adding that he was thrilled by the rare prospect the shuttle would be visible over Canadian skies. Shuttle orbits generally are farther south.

Molczan is an engineering technologist who specializes in energy conservation. His interest in space is visible in his sparsely furnished 23rd floor apartment; a computer and charts lie on his desk, books on the subject cram a bookcase and high-power binoculars sit on a stand near the door. The binoculars, said Molczan, are more useful than telescopes for satellite watching because they are easier to point and have a wider field of view. (Deseret News, Dec. 15, 1988)

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December 20: NASA KEEPING AN EYE ON MARS FOR EXPLORATION IN 21ST CENTURY
NASA is laying the groundwork to send the next generation of astronauts beyond the Earth's orbit early in the 21st century, with missions to Mars and a space station on a Martian moon among the possibilities. In a report released Monday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the nation must make a "modest investment of resources" during the 1990s to prepare the nation for a range of opportunities in space."This ability is critical to United States leadership in space," said the report titled, "Beyond Earth's Boundaries: Human Exploration of the Solar System in the 21st Century."

The report examined several strategies for exploring the inner reaches of the solar system, including establishing a manned lunar observatory, setting up a space station on the Martian moon Phobos or sending astronauts to the red planet itself early in the next century. The ambitious blueprint addresses President Reagan's directive on space policy issued last January. The directive sets as a long-range goal "to expand human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system."

Frank Martin, assistant administrator of NASA's Office of Exploration, said "there's every indication" the Bush administration will support that policy. The underpinnings of any strategy to send space explorers to the moon and beyond in the next two decades will be increased NASA funding for development of new technology, life sciences research, unmanned robotic missions, development of a new fleet of launch vehicles able to lift heavier loads, and continued commitment to Space Station Freedom, which is planned for Earth orbit in the mid-1990s.

If those conditions are met, the United States could send astronauts to Phobos in 2003 or to Mars in 2007 or establish by 2005 a lunar base from which astronauts could build a Mars outpost in 2015, said John Aaron, who headed the Office of Exploration during production of the report. Aaron said the agency has not developed reliable cost estimates for the missions studied in the report. "We are not talking about missions that are cheap," he said, but "we think these are affordable." Martin said such missions probably could be accomplished at less real cost than the Apollo program. (Deseret News, Dec. 20, 1988)

December 21: COSMONAUTS SPENT 366 DAYS ALOFT - RETURN SAFELY TOGETHER WITH FRENCH GUEST
Two Soviet cosmonauts who spent a record-breaking 366 days in space landed safely in Soviet Central Asia Wednesday after a computer failure in their space capsule delayed their return by three hours. The TASS news agency said the Cosmos ship Soyuz TM-6 with cosmonauts Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov and French astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien landed at 12:57 p.m. local time (2:57 a.m. MST) 112 miles southeast of the city of Djezkazgan. The two cosmonauts and Chretien, who joined Titov and Manarov in the Soviet Mir space station Nov. 28, circled Earth twice as a new program was punched into the TM-6's computer. The spacecraft then made the soft-earth landing 185 miles away from the original landing site of Arkalik in the plains of Soviet central Asia.

"The return went very well," Gen. Alexei Leonov, the first Soviet cosmonaut to walk in space, told Western reporters. "The first thing they told us on the radio was they are feeling well."

The landing was a triumph for Titov and Manarov, who smashed world records for space endurance by living in space for just over a year (365 d 22 h 38 m 57 s). Titov, Manarov and Chretien, strapped into special chairs to cushion the impact, were immediately whisked from the spacecraft and into hastily erected heated tents. As soon as preliminary medical checks were carried out, the three were to be flown to Moscow for a full physical examination to determine the effects of a year of weightlessness on the two Soviet cosmonauts.

According to TASS, the three-hour delay was caused by "a disorder of the onboard automatic systems." Michel Tognini, the backup French spaceman, told reporters the delay was necessary to allow the cosmonauts to program new landing coordinates into the computer. "When a computer glitch occurs, the cosmonaut has to physically punch in landing coordinates, retro rocket information and compass points," he said. "It all went very well. It was a problem they had no trouble coping with."

It was the first time in six years that Western journalists were permitted to be on the scene of a manned Soviet mission, a Soviet space official said. The last time was in 1982 when Chretien completed the first-ever joint French-Soviet manned mission. (Deseret News, Dec. 21, 1988)

CRACK IN TURBOPUMP FOUND
A crack was found Dec. 18 in a main engine turbo pump - on a bearing part - during routine inspections at Kennedy Space Center, according to Launch Processing Director Conrad Nagel. He said that officials had already planned to replace the pumps in any case and that they would be shipped to the manufacturer, Rockwell International Corporation's Rocketdyne division in California, to determine the cause of the crack. Nagel also said that it was too early to tell whether the crack would affect future launchings. (The New York Times, Dec. 22, 1988)

THIOKOL, NASA PROBING SHORT CIRCUIT IN BOOSTER MOTOR
Morton Thiokol and NASA are investigating an apparent short circuit inside a Solid Rocket Booster motor that sent sparks flying and workers scrambling. The incident occurred Dec. 8, while employees were preparing the booster rocket for a crucial test recently at Morton Thiokol's Wasatch Operations plant in Brigham City, spokesman Rocky Raab said. The 1.1 million pounds of rubbery propellant inside the 14-story boosters is ignited by a charge inside the rocket nozzle that sends a flame down to the rocket fuel.

"There's a heater that fits around the igniter, and the crew had installed and tested the motor when there was an arc inside the igniter," Raab said. Electricity to the test stand was shut off and workers were evacuated. The igniter, which is made by a subcontractor for the Utah aerospace firm, was redesigned along with an overhaul of the rockets after the shuttle Challenger disaster nearly three years ago. "It was not a serious problem. It was simply a defective heater. The heater may have to be redesigned," Raab said.

No one was injured and no damage reported to the booster, which will be fired next month in the last test required by the presidential commission that investigated the Challenger explosion. "No damage was done to the igniter and no damage to the motor" in the mishap, Raab said. The incident does not appear to have an effect on the scheduled firing of Qualifying Motor 8, or QM8, Raab said. Nor does the short circuit affect the next space shuttle launch in February, he added. "We've already tested those heaters before they were put on."

United Press International, quoting anonymous sources, Tuesday reported the problem may have been caused because the heating element had to be bent into its proper position during installation, which may have brought electrical elements into contact. The redesigned Solid Rocket Boosters were hailed by NASA engineers as the safest ever flown when the shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., three months ago. (Deseret News, Dec. 21, 1988)

December 22: WATCH THOSE BOOSTERS!
The National Research Council has advised NASA to keep a wary eye on the manufacturing and development of the Solid Rocket Boosters it uses to help launch the Space Shuttles. The head of the Council, Guyford Stever, said "success breeds confidence and confidence breeds complacency. They have to watch for that. But the people we've talked with at NASA say there isn't going to be any overconfidence on their watch." The panel recommended that NASA strengthen some booster joints, expand test data and confirm boosters' reusability by testing ones already flown. NASA Systems Engineering Chief David Winterhalter said, "I think we've got most of them covered to some extent. We're looking at what we have in our program that will satisfy their suggestions." (USA Today, Dec. 23, 1988)

ADVISORY PANEL WORRIES ABOUT COMPLACENCY IN SHUTTLE FLIGHT SAFETY
The chairman of a scientific advisory group monitoring the redesign of the space shuttle's booster rockets said Friday the panel has concerns about NASA's efforts to assure continued flight safety. H. Guyford Stever, chairman of the panel set up by the National Research Council, said he has a "broad concern, namely that the continuing program be carried out" now that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has returned to space with two successful flights in the wake of the 1986 Challenger accident."Success breeds confidence, and that's what you want, but it can also threaten you with complacency," Stever said in an interview. "I don't see complacency developing, but I do know they have budget problems, and how they'll solve that is difficult to say," he added.

The panel's report, delivered to NASA Wednesday, also cited two new problems with the redesigned boosters found after the Sept. 29 launch of Discovery:

- Small pieces of cork used to cover external diagnostic instruments and their electrical leads were lost during flight and one piece is believed to have damaged thermal tiles on the orbiter. Cork is also suspected of causing extensive damage to tiles on Atlantis, which was launched Dec. 2.

- Metal-to-metal seals were scratched and pitted. Stever said that removal of the seals could raise shuttle program costs. He said the scars were small and did not threaten safety.

The report also lists nine problem areas that need to be addressed before the redesign effort can be considered complete. Among the tasks remaining are strengthening of the conical base of the booster rocket, more testing of booster segments to determine their potential to be reused safely, improving materials for bonding booster parts, developing alternative materials for O-ring seals and more test-firing at cold temperatures, the report said.

In the Challenger accident, one of the O-rings between the booster segments failed, allowing hot exhaust gases from the rocket to leak and cause the explosion that destroyed the shuttle and killed its crew of seven. Cold temperatures also contributed to the O-ring's failure. Hercules Aerospace is involved in a NASA-funded study of rocket booster nozzles that will address design concerns; other studies are under way to examine adhesives used on the shuttle and booster. Following the Challenger disaster, the shuttle program was put on hold while NASA and rocket maker Morton Thiokol Inc. revamped the boosters and program objectives. Morton Thiokol examined a variety of materials for the O-ring seals, but determined Viton was the best space-age material to withstand the thermal assault of lift-off.

A cold test firing of the boosters is set at Thiokol's Brigham City, Utah, facility for sometime in January, to ensure the redesigned rockets can handle frigid temperatures. A test last December in bitter cold was hailed as a success. NASA said it will "carefully consider all the group's recommendations." Stever said NASA officials have told him the agency has plans to carry out some of the tasks cited in the report, including a cold-weather test scheduled next month, and is considering the others on the list.

The booster rockets worked for 24 flights before failing on the Challenger mission, Stever pointed out. Referring to the redesigned booster rockets, he said, "we don't consider it a bad design, it's just that things could be improved further." The report also recommends several risk-reduction steps, including maintaining technically competent personnel familiar with booster design to evaluate and improve quality control, assembly and launch operations and maintaining ground-testing and in-flight performance measuring programs. It also recommends insulating the budget for these safety activities from "competitive pressures" from other programs.

The panel of independent scientists was set up at the request of the White House-appointed Rogers commission that investigated the Challenger accident. The commission asked the panel to monitor NASA's compliance with its recommendations. The report, sent to NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher , was the panel's final one. The report said "a number of important lessons have been learned" from NASA's redesign program. Among them are the need for a basic understanding of all systems and the need for "a full spectrum of tests" before a system is deployed. These lessons can be applied to other NASA programs as well, the panel said.

"It is not realistic to view the mission as risk-free," the report said, but it added that confidence can be increased from performance testing of the systems before flight, monitoring of systems in flight and their inspection after flight. Though the Challenger accident inspired NASA to establish a new set of redesign and verification standards, "it is important that these standards be continued in the flight program, and that budgetary, manpower and facilities policies be consistent with that objective," the report said. (Deseret News, Dec. 24, 1988)

December 23: FHP PILOT CAN APPEAL FLYOVER
The Florida Highway Patrol pilot who flew illegally over Kennedy Space Center Sept. 29 has till Dec. 27 to appeal a 30-day suspension of his license. The FHP pilot was one of two who overflew KSC airspace on the day Discovery was launched. The second pilot circled over the Vehicle Assembly Building and a launch pad a few hours before liftoff. The plane was intercepted by a NASA helicopter and escorted out of the area. (Florida Today, Dec. 24, 1988)

HOLIDAYS SLOW SHUTTLE PREPARATIONS
Kennedy Space Center slowed its shuttle preparation pace to allow its workers to head home for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. Discovery and Atlantis have been powered down, according to KSC spokesman George Diller, and only a skeleton crew will remain to continue tile work on Atlantis. The investigative report on tile damage to Atlantis from its STS-27 mission is not yet completed. Next week the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite's Inertial Upper Stage booster will be delivered to KSC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Atlantis’ No. 3 main engine will be removed so its turbopump can be returned to its California manufacturer. (Florida Today, Dec. 24, 1988)

SOVIET COSMONAUTS WALKING AS PART OF RECOVERY
Cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov are taking long walks as part of their recovery from a record year in space and are having a tough time persuading doctors they feel all right, the TASS news agency said Friday.

Titov and Manarov returned to Earth and the restrictions of gravity Wednesday after 366 days, 22 hours and 39 minutes in the of weightlessness of space, breaking all existing space endurance records."The most difficult thing for us now is to convince the doctors that we are still healthy," Titov said at a news conference. Speaking to TASS at Star City, a space center outside on the outskirts of Moscow, Titov, 41, said, "Yesterday and today, we went outside to take 15 and 20 minute strolls." (Deseret News, Dec. 24, 1988)

December 24: SOVIET SPACE PROBE MAY NOT BE IN STELLAR SHAPE
A Soviet space probe scheduled to drop into orbit around Mars in late January to explore Phobos, one of the red planet's two tiny moons, may be experiencing trouble with one or more onboard instruments, American observers said Saturday. While space experts said rumors about problems with the Phobos 2 probe did not indicate the craft's showcase mission was in any immediate danger, they did indicate problems of some sort were being experienced by one or more instruments, onboard telemetry systems or both.Phobos 2 was launched July 12, one week after a sister ship was carried into orbit atop a powerful Proton booster. But Phobos 1 was declared a loss in September after incorrect commands were radioed to the spacecraft, leaving Phobos 2 on its own.

"We've heard some rumors about problems with Phobos 2," said Samuel Keller, deputy associate administrator for space science and applications at NASA. "What I am hearing is that they've had some instrument failure and that one of the spacecraft systems . . . is allegedly on a backup system. "We've heard nothing authoritative from Moscow. It's kind of speculative." But Keller said by telephone from his home in Washington that "there's certainly a reasonable question about them having some trouble. I suspect there's something to it."

Phobos 2 is scheduled to slip into orbit around Mars around Jan. 29 and the Soviets apparently are accelerating mission plans to gather valuable data as soon as possible. Under the original flight plan, Keller said, Soviet ground controllers planned to spend several months slowly maneuvering the craft to as close as 150 feet from Phobos, a small potato-shaped moon that may be an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity. A highlight of the Phobos mission will be the deployment of a small lander from the mothership to study the surface of the moon. The mothercraft, meanwhile, will fire laser and ion beams at the moon in experiments to study its chemical composition and structure.

"The original plan was to actually put their lander on Phobos three or four months after they got to the vicinity," Keller said. "What we're hearing now is, that's been speeded up." The Phobos probes marked the first in a series of ambitious Soviet unmanned missions to Mars over the next decade expected to culminate in an automated soil sample return mission by the end of the 1990s. (Deseret News, Dec 25, 1988)

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December 27: NEW SHUTTLE IN CAPE CANAVERAL
The newest Shuttle in Brevard County is not found at Kennedy Space Center. Cape Canaveral Volunteer firefighters spent two weeks constructing a 20-foot-long by 12-foot-wide model of the Space Shuttle that they've named "Volunteer." The new Shuttle was erected on the lawn of Cape Canaveral City Hall. Firefighter Glenn Neeb said, "We donated it as a friendly present to the city to keep our relationship open. We appreciate what they've done for us. We wanted to say thank you and Merry Christmas." Cape Canaveral's City Manager Leo Nicholas said of the Volunteer, "It's another example of goodwill and cooperation between the volunteer fire department and the city." (Florida Today, Dec. 28, 1988)