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#440
by
Chris Bergin
on 16 May, 2009 20:57
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Thanks much
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#441
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:03
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MSB starting.
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#442
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:06
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All the big heads present, as yesterday.
Cecacci: Today's EVA more like expected, thanking all the teams. Great day, and having high confidence in tomorrow's STIS repair.
Crew happy (obviously), no changes to tomorrow's EVA, with STIS and NOBL.
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#443
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:08
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González-Torres: 6h 36m total EVA duration. Reminding the 111 fasteners in STIS. No issues in COSTAR/COS swapout, really fast crew, they kept getting ahead on the timeline.
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#444
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:10
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This man (whose name I forgot, sorry
) talking about COS, after remarking how smooth the day was. Citing the whole team, highlighting the adversities they had to overcome before, during and after the mission's cancellation. No doubt they'll be celebrating today.
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#445
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:13
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Preston remembering how much they suffered these last days, with the glitches and hiccups in EVA-1 and 2. Grunsfeld and Feustel made it look easy today. 60% through SM-4. Only major task they need to accomplish is the replacement of the battery module that remains.
NASA manager who developed the amazingly wide set of tools for this mission's EVAs is among the audience in the press conference room, available for questions.
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#446
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:17
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Lackrone remembering their paleness yesterday and on Thursday
Adversity made the work to get done through extraordinary effort, today wasn't as necessary.
100% success so far. Very first internal repair of scientific instrument been demonstrated today. ACS confirmed to be alive, and over the next few days will be assessing its regained capabilities.
Ed Cheng is the mastermind of the ACS repair mission, and was also for the NICMOS cooling system upgrade in SM-3B.
Much more powerful observatory to observe the Universe available now. Looking forward to the operation of the two new spectrometers.
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#447
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:21
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Harwood asking about how much capability they can regain in ACS depending on the status of the electronics in it.
The LVPS bypasses power to both side 1 and 2. The electronics on the CCD box (the ones that took the place of the replaced boards) will show their value when the functional test is complete, in the next few hours/days. They chose the Wide Field Channel, because it was the most used, but perhaps the High Resolution Channel will be repaired too, as we know.
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#448
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:23
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Q: What was going through your mind when everything went like clockwork?
A: Everyone glued to their seats, didn't want to stop watching the repairs. Superb job by the astros, exhaustive training really paid off. Replacement electronic box for the CCD box developed under an extremely compressed timeline, lots of pressure on the developers.
Borrowed some of the equipment that had been developed for STIS, as that had failed earlier.
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#449
by
psloss
on 16 May, 2009 21:27
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Note on the ACS Functional timing from the briefing...supposed to start at 6 pm Central (2300 GMT) and last for about four hours.
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#450
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:28
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Av Week: WRT the robotic mission that never was, the capture plate had some heritage from it?
A: Dextre-related robot was envisioned, with special tools for very difficult and specialized activities. A lot of pioneering work was done during those years. Also wanted to robotically repair STIS when it failed, capture plate was one of the technologies developed for that approach. It survived the transition back to Shuttle-based repair. Working prototype was done on record time.
Even thought about combining the robot with the astronauts, letting them leave the robot overnight so that it did the job. Found it to be quite cumbersome, so dropped the idea.
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#451
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:31
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COS avoids wasting light inside the instrument (minimum number of reflections) Versatile design, thought towards looking at distant quasars and measure the light that passes through the intergallactic medium to characterize the medium.
It has two-dimensional light detectors, what it basically does is get the light that passes through a slit and divide it into its constituent wavelenghts. Restricted to UV, coarser details than STIS, but broader spectrum. Few things in astrophysics you cannot do with both instruments.
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#452
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:33
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Q: Highlights for tomorrow's spacewalk.
A: Apart from the 111 screws, the repair is more straightforward than in the ACS, because the board is right underneath the side panel, once you open it. Panel with a pair of levers so that it's easier to put back in place. Best time for removing the 111 screws is 40 minutes... comparing it with NASCAR
The 32 screws seen today went really smoothly, so the concept works.
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#453
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:35
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Space.com: Do you have the feeling that the mission has passed a corner, after the challenging EVA-1 and 2, and the smooth 3?
A: The team needs to stay focused, because all this is very tricky. Enjoying the moment, but with an eye on tomorrow.
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#454
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:40
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Q: What does the ACS expedite repair do to the priorities/timelines/extra time available? Any extra tasks?
A: "You plan your flight and then you fly your plan"
STIS will take pretty much the whole day. Although it's lower priority, they won't try to push the battery replacements or other EVA-5 tasks forward just because they may have the time. NOBL 7 may be installed if there is enough time available, already in orbit and ready to install if everybody is comfortable.
A: SIC&DH prompted the battery bay changeout deferral to EVA-5 to give more margin to the astronauts. Thanks to things going really well today they can think about finishing both ACS and STIS.
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#455
by
Kel
on 16 May, 2009 21:40
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#456
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:42
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Q: One out of two repairs was considered success... how is this being looked at now?
A: They didn't go into the trouble of developing both repairs just to drop them once one is complete. Both instruments are equally important, the community is hungry for these instruments, so difficult decision which to put forward.
If there was any problem with the orbiter or something, batteries and FGS would have higher priority, but that's the only circumstance under which they wouldn't consider trying to repair it.
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#457
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:44
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Q: Asking for another prognosis for tomorrow's EVA by Lackrone
A: Mass and Bueno are very competitive, so tomorrow's gonna be really smooth too, because they could do their tasks sleepwalking (so better spacewalking, obviously!)
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#458
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:45
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Q: What is the biggest item in having confidence in tomorrow's EVA success?
A: The capture plate: after seeing how well it worked, the confidence has risen a lot.
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#459
by
eeergo
on 16 May, 2009 21:47
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MSB over with a lengthy programming 'note' by Navias, as per usual
