Challenger STS-7 – Sally’s Ride

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Tuesday, June 21, 1983 (Flight Day 4) – In The Heat Of The Day

“Welcome this morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I’d like to particularly welcome Mrs. Holloway, who’s here reporting for the Holloway household. She’s the good-looking lady on the back row… There’s a couple of good-looking ladies on the back row…”

- Tommy Holloway, Flight Director, 8:30 a.m. CDT briefing, June 21, 1983


A HAPPY CREW

It was still Monday, June 20, 11:16 p.m. CDT, when the Houston PAO went on the air, reporting, “We’re taking data through Dakar right now, and it’s the first look the Mission Control team has had at Challenger for about an hour and 26 minutes. They’re looking at the downlink data now and everything looks to be nominal onboard the vehicle. Cabin temperature inside Challenger is 73 degrees, humidity is 30 percent. Still about fifteen minutes remaining in the crew’s sleep period, no indications that any of the crewmembers are awake at this point. The vehicle is on orbit 44; it’s approaching the west coast of Africa…”

Then, at 12:37 a.m. CDT, Mission Control announced, “Tommy Holloway and his team of flight controllers have arrived in the control center and are tagging up and preparing for handover. We’re about a minute and a half away from Acquisition of Signal through Merritt Island Station. It will be our first voice contact of the day, of the new day with the crew of STS-7. Challenger on the 45th orbit, and we expect voice contact and the wakeup call momentarily…”

On this morning, following the unavoidable first few bars of the “Aggie War Hymn,” the crew of Challenger was rising and shining to the U.S. version of the “Reveille” bugle call – “réveille” being the French word for “wake up” – which is commonly used to wake military personnel at sunrise.

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This was followed by “When You’re Smiling,” written by Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay and Mark Fisher and made famous by Louis Armstrong, who had recorded it at least three times. This special STS-7 version of the song was rendered by CapCom Mary Cleave’s father, Dr. Howard E. Cleave, who also had recorded a short introduction. “Now hear this. Now hear this. To the crew onboard the Challenger, it is time to put on your socks and hit the deck, and this morning…”


“Oh when you smilin', when you smilin'
The whole world smiles with you
Yes, when you laughin', when you laughin'
Yes, the sun come shinin' through.

But when you cryin' you bring on the rain
So stop your sighin' baby and be happy again
Yes, and keep on smilin, keep on smilin'
And the whole world smiles with you.”


In response, the Challenger crew downlinked some music of their own – some version of the 1973 Eagles song “Tequilla Sunrise,” written by Don Henley and Glenn Fry.


“It's another tequila sunrise
Starin' slowly 'cross the sky,
said goodbye

He was just a hired hand
Workin' on the dreams he planned to try
The days go by

(...) It's another tequila sunrise,
this old world still looks the same,
Another frame...”


Crippen: What’s that funny song you guys wake us with every morning?

Fabian: Hello, Houston, Challenger. How do you read?

CapCom: We read you loud and clear. How me?

Fabian: Mary, you’re loud and clear. Crip wants to know what that funny music is that you wake us up with every morning…

CapCom: Well, we thought maybe you could guess what the tune was.

Fabian: We’re working on it. We’re working on it. Did you recognize what we played back to you?

CapCom: Roger that. We think its “Tequila Sunrise.”

Fabian: Now you know why we’re such a happy crew. And we’d like to thank the support group for that wonderful PPK (Personal Preference Kit).

CapCom: Roger. We copy that.


Well, “Tequila Sunrise” – that gave way to some additional inside jokes during the crew’s breakfast. “For breakfast, you know, we appreciate the support crew’s help, and we had the fruit juice and so on,” Sally Ride mused. “But looking forward to dinner, we’re wondering where they put the limes. And this liquid salt is a little hard to use, but we’ve made due.” Quipped CapCom Mary Cleave, “Roger that. I think they stored the limes next to the tonic.”

Aside from discussing such important matters, there was talk about some readjustments to the O2 partial pressure inside Challenger’s cabin and using a power outlet designated to the now finished MLR experiment for a 16mm camera. CapCom Mary Cleave also had some late news about the Indonesian communications satellite launched earlier in the mission which made the crew even happier…


CapCom: Challenger, this is Houston. We just got some good news. They had a good Palapa burn, and the Palapa is now all set on orbit.

Ride: Hey, that’s great.

Fabian: It is fantastic.

CapCom: Roger that.

Fabian: And Mary, we never did get a report on an apogee burn on the Anik. We hope that went well, too.

CapCom: John, that’s due tomorrow night, and we’ll keep you posted on how that’s going…


At 12:48 a.m. CDT, after Challenger had gone LOS at MILA and was approaching the Dakar tracking station, the Houston PAO gave some more details on the Palapa satellite. “The Apogee Kick Motor was scheduled for a 54-second burn at 11:28 p.m. Central Time yesterday evening. The Ministry of Communications in Jakarta verified that that burn occurred on time and was nominal.”

Shortly before 1:00 a.m. CDT, Mary Cleave said her goodbyes to the Challenger crew, as the Planning Team, led by Larry Bourgeois, was in the process of handing over to Tommy Holloway’s Orbit 1 team. Oncoming CapComs were Jon McBride and Terry “T.J.” Hart.


CapCom: Challenger, this is Houston. We’re about a minute to LOS, and we’ll talk to you again… we won’t be talking to you again through Indian Ocean at 18:38. Jon said to tell you the good guys will be talking to you then. It was good to talk to you now though. Bye, bye.

Ride: Bye. Sleep tight, Mary… And Mary, once again, we sure appreciate the good work you guys did, and no alarms and nice messages in the morning, and you sure set us up good for the next day.

CapCom: Thanks a lot. We appreciate that.

Ride: See you later.

CapCom: Adios.

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WORKING MOMS

One thing the “happy crew” hadn’t been so happy about during that morning’s first MILA pass was the status of the satellite still securely mounted inside Challenger’s cargo bay – the West German SPAS-01. During the early part of Flight Day 4 it was clearly showing some kind of stage fright ahead of Wednesday’s much anticipated debutante ball in space. And slightly raised temperature was only the beginning of it…


Fabian: We’ve noticed that the MOMS experiment is powered off this morning, and we also note that the mode of processing temp is continuing to increase, and we’re seeing 113.5 now, and we wonder if we’re still on a 115 limit for shutdown.

CapCom: That’s affirmative, John, on the 115.

Fabian: Okay. We saw that in the morning teleprinter message and you folks must have turned the MOMS off during the night. Is that affirm?

CapCom: John, they commanded the MOMS off, and they’ll be commanding it on shortly for a data take.

Fabian: Okay. We copy that.

Ride: How did it work last night?

CapCom: Sally, the MOMS worked fine last night.

Ride: Great.


At around 1:15 a.m. CDT, just after the shift change at Mission Control had been completed, Challenger was moving out over the Indian Ocean on revolution number 45, now in a 158 by 156 nautical mile orbit, with a period of one hour, 30 minutes, 31 seconds. CapCom Terry Hart was giving the crew a heads up on SPAS-related events during the upcoming Australia pass.


CapCom: And Sally, that next MOMS data take is at 19:00 even, over Australia, and the temperature is just about a degree or so below 115. And we’d like you to go ahead and get that data take even if it goes over 115 a little bit and power down after the MOMS data take. It will last for about a minute and a half at 19:00.

Ride: Okay, T.J, 19:00. And that’s the one that you’re controlling. Is that correct?

CapCom: Stand by, please, Sally… We have 40 seconds left here at IOS, and we are controlling the MOMS on this one, to verify that Sally. We’ll talk to you next at Yarragadee at 18:55.

Ride: Okay, over Yarragadee, and we’ll try and get you those 35mm of the ground during that Australia pass for the MOMS people.

CapCom: I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.

Ride: See you.

Fabian: Everybody likes MOMS.

Ride: Hi, MOMS.


When Challenger came within range of the Yarragadee station, just minutes away from the anticipated MOMS data take, Terry Hart asked, “And for John and Sally there, we’d like you to confirm that the MOMS recorder runs at 19:00. We suspect it may not have run on the last pass, and if you could verify that for us, we’d appreciate it.”


Fabian: Okay, we’re watching it, T.J. (…) …You might pass to the MOMS folks that the weather looks good along their track this morning.

CapCom: Okay, very good, John. They’re listening and I’m sure they heard that.

Fabian: Okay, Houston, Challenger. You got a fail and then the status changed to good. But we’ve still got the tape in standby.

CapCom: Fail to good and standby. We copy.

Fabian: T.J., the last call there is the ready went no.

CapCom: We didn’t copy what went to no, John.

Fabian: Roger. Ready, ready equals no.

CapCom: Okay, I understand. We’re thinking about that, and we’re also revising our upper limit on the temperature, so stand by for a new number of vice 115… and don’t shut down the SPAS yet…

Fabian: Okay. We’re standing by.

CapCom: We’ll see you at Orroral in about one minute.

Fabian: Okay.

CapCom: …We’re AOS Orroral for five minutes.

Fabian: Loud and clear.

CapCom: And John, we’d like you to disregard everything we said before about shutting down the SPAS at 115. We’d like you to watch it today and just advise us if it starts going high. And we’ll give you a go to shut it down at that time, perhaps.

Fabian: Okay, we understand that we will shut it down on your go only.


With Challenger heading out over the Pacific Ocean, leaving Orroral Valley behind for an extended LOS period – with next acquisition through Merritt Island at 2:14 a.m. CDT, the PAO recapped, “During this pass we asked the crew to not shut down the SPAS if it reaches 115 degrees temperature; that temperature now at just slightly over 114 with a very slow increase. We’ve asked, when the temperature reaches 115, we’ve asked the crew to check with the ground, the Payloads people on the ground, before shutting down the SPAS.”

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EARLY SHUTDOWN

At 2:24 a.m. CDT, just after LOS through Bermuda, the PAO gave another update. “During this pass at MILA and Bermuda we did some checking on the MOMS recorder, some troubleshooting on that recorder. It’s not operating properly – does not appear to be, at least, and they’re attempting to do some troubleshooting there.”

Later that morning Flight Director Tommy Holloway explained, “At that time we had three experiments running – the MOMS, the heat pipe and the yaw sensor. We developed some problems commanding to the MOMS. Its recorder would not operate, would not come on and run. And, of course, without the internal recorder to the MOMS there’s no way of recording the data.”


CapCom: We show the MOMS is not powered on. Where do you show it?

Crippen: We show it now powered on.

CapCom: Okay. We have a minute left here, and we’d like to deactivate the heat pipe, the mass spec, and the yaw sensor at this time.

Crippen: Okay. Deactivate the heat pipe, the mass spec, and the yaw sensor. Wilco.

CapCom: And Challenger, we have ground command on the MOMS now. No action required, IOS at 20:14.

Crippen: T.J., no action’s required on what?

CapCom: MOMS.

Crippen: Okay, yes… we’re not getting a response to heat pipe off.

CapCom: Okay, we need for you to turn the MOMS on at this time, and we’re thinking about the heat pipe.

Crippen: Okay, you want the MOMS on – O-N?

CapCom: Affirmative, and then we have ground commands stored to command MOMS. We’ll talk to you at IOS.

PAO: This is Shuttle Control. Challenger is out of range of Dakar, moving down across Africa toward the Indian Ocean Station; acquisition there in eleven and a half minutes. Payloads has asked that the heat pipe, mass spectrometer, and the yaw sensor experiments be deactivated. At this time, Bob Crippen reported that the heat pipe did not respond to the off command. Payloads is looking at that now. At two days, 20 hours, two minutes Mission Elapsed Time, this is Shuttle Control Houston.


“We were then unable to power the MOMS, indicating that we had an additional command problem in that system. When we elected to turn off the heat pipe, the command to turn off the heat pipe would not operate either,” Flight Director Holloway continued. “We developed a problem in the Data Handling System (DHS) onboard the SPAS; that’s the system that allows us to command experiments and to get data back out of the various experiments that are onboard the SPAS.” Referring to Dr. Konrad Moritz, the SPAS project manager, Holloway added, “At that point, Konrad and I made a decision to go ahead and deactivate the SPAS.”


PAO: This is Shuttle Control, two days, 20 hours, 12 minutes Mission Elapsed Time, Challenger on orbit 46, approaching acquisition through the Indian Ocean Station…

CapCom: We’re AOS at Indy for nine minutes.

Crippen: Okay, loud and clear.

CapCom: If you haven’t already tried it, we’d like you to try that item 2, 22 rather, to turn the heat pipe off a couple of more times.

Crippen: We’ve tried it a total of three times. Do you want to try it again?

CapCom: Yes, let us look at a couple of more attempts.

Crippen: Okay. The last time John tried it, he got a momentary removal of the asterisk beside item 3, which is the experiment on, and then it came right back again. And I’ll try it again.

CapCom: Okay.

Crippen: Okay, there’s one attempt and is still no joy. There’s another attempt… and still no joy… And T.J., I’m going to go off comm for just a second…

CapCom: Okay.

Crippen: Okay, how do you read me now, T.J.?

CapCom: You’re loud and clear… and we’d like to go ahead with the SPAS deactivation at this time.

Crippen: Understand you want to deact SPAS.

CapCom: Affirmative.


At 2:26 a.m. CDT, The PAO reported, “The Indian Ocean Station has Loss of Signal. During this pass, the SPAS was deactivated with the exception of the MAUS-1 experiment. That will continue to operate.” As Tommy Holloway explained, “A couple of experiments which do not require the DHS continue to run at this time and will be completed. In general, we were well on our way to completing the programs at the point that we needed to deactivate the SPAS. The heat pipe and the yaw sensor were cut short some, but I expect that there will be considerable data available for the SPAS people to evaluate.”


CapCom: For your information, we got about half the MOMS recorder filled, and they did get their four primary sites. So we feel pretty good about MOMS.

Fabian: Okay, super. And I think we can still do the FPL later today, can’t we?

CapCom: Stand by. I’ll get an answer on that… And John, we anticipate no problems with the FPL. And if it’s okay with you, we’ll just do that as scheduled later on.

Fabian: That’s just super, T.J.


A little later the PAO confirmed that the early SPAS shutdown due to an overheating DHS microprocessor didn’t jeopardize mission success. “It will be allowed to cool down. It is not expected to impact SPAS operations, detached or attached operations later in the mission. The feeling is that when the microprocessor cools down, that SPAS operations can continue.”

Asked if the theory was that when the various experiments were turned on the flow of data from those into the Data Handling System caused the heat problem, Holloway said, “Well, I would characterize it more that the Data Handling System being on causes the problem. Whether you have a one or two or three experiments’ data flowing through the system is not of particular importance, but just the fact that it’s on for long periods of time. And over that long period of time the temperature builds up.”

During the morning change-of-shift briefing at JSC, Aviation Week’s Craig Covault asked Flight Director Holloway, “It’s a Pearl Harbor question, but if you did encounter continuing processing problems with that equipment, would that be a no go on the prox ops?”

“Well, we have very clear flight rules in terms of what we would do for failures in the SPAS,” answered Holloway. “For example, the automatic system which requires the DHS to operate for us to send commands, turn the gyros on and set the system up, command LVLH (Local Vertical/Local Horizontal) or inertial attitudes and so on so forth, is required to do the entire program of the prox ops.”

“So, if we’re unable to obtain any of the functions within the automatic system, which you may hear referred to around here as the MODUS, we would be no go for the prox ops operations at least in its entirety. We have a backup system, attitude command system, called a DCU, and we will do a limited prox ops operation with just the DCU.”

“But let me reemphasize that the experts really believe that the SPAS is going to operate properly tomorrow,” Holloway insisted. “As a matter of fact, the equipment that we suspect is the problem is the output cards and the little switching mechanism in the output cards. And those are completely separate cards for the equipment that we need tomorrow to operate from the ones that were used to power the experiments.”

And getting SPAS out of the payload bay would even help cooling off the equipment, as became clear when a German reporter asked, “Basically speaking, will the SPAS beam off more heat while it’s in the free-flying mode, or while it is attached to the payload bay? In other words, is there a better cooling off capability while it is in the free-flying mode?”

“If I understood you correctly, you asked me would it cool better and be cooler in the free-flying mode,” answered Holloway. “And the answer is yes. It is predicted to run some fifteen degrees cooler and heat up slower in the free-flying mode. So, we really believe when we get it out of the bay and get it free-flying, that we won’t have any problem with the thermal.”

“First of all, SPAS will be thermally in a better condition as a free-flyer,” he explained. “And secondly, the prox ops operations tomorrow lasts eight or nine hours, and we have had the DHS powered since yesterday, or had it powered all night, plus yesterday afternoon. So, that was a much longer period of time, like sixteen to eighteen hours.”

“The SPAS does have an attitude that is more sensitive to developing the thermal problem than others, or to put it in a positive sense, an attitude that cools the SPAS off better. And we have some people working with the SPAS representatives at this very moment determining if that will provide us options to reorient the SPAS for the prox ops operation and enable us to continue should this problem develop on.”

“We are currently planning in a cold attitude to cool off the SPAS electronics equipment, and we’ll go back to our normal upside-down ZLV attitude this evening,” said Flight Director Holloway. “We have added, or will be adding a short checkout, additional checkout of the SPAS first thing in the morning. We’re just a little cautious in adding this checkout before we commit to the proximity operations.”


CapCom: …We don’t feel too bad about the SPAS here. Like we told you, the MOMS data, we think, is going to be real good, and everything got turned on, and we’re looking forward to seeing how well they worked when we get you back.

Fabian: Okay. Super.

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AN ALL-AMERICAN DRUG LAB

“Today has been kind of a slow day for us, particularly with the SPAS deactivated, but we expect tomorrow is going to pick up,” Flight Director Tommy Holloway told reporters after the morning shift change. But especially Sally Ride had significant work scheduled for Flight Day 4 – the completion of the first three runs of Challenger’s quite legal drug lab, the Continuous-Flow Electrophoresis System. “They started off with a few adjustments to the CFES equipment,” said Holloway, “and right now they are running very, very well.”


Ride: And T.J., let me talk to you about the CFES for a second.

CapCom (Terry Hart): Go ahead, Sally.

Ride: Okay. I just started it up, and am right now trying to put in the first sample syringe. And I got the dummy syringe out, and in putting the sample syringe, sample 1 syringe in, I got the small (garble) knob, and then the middle one that goes over the clamp. But I can’t get the big (garble) knob on. It looks like I just can’t thread it onto the syringe. It looks like it might be stripped or something. And I can’t get the (garble)…

CapCom: That sounds very familiar to us, like we saw that in the sim. Let us get an answer for you.

Ride: I agree. It does sound familiar.

CapCom: (…) If you can verify the small knob is secure and the clamp is down, then… and also that the sample nose is seated… we think there’s no problem. You can proceed.

Ride: Okay.


At 3:45 a.m. CDT, 2/21:12 MET, the PAO announced, “Challenger about 30 seconds away from acquisition through Merritt Island. We’ll stand by for conversation there and television from Challenger.”


CapCom: Hello, Challenger, we just got TV downlink.

Ride: Hi, T.J. – T.J., let me talk to you about the CFES for a second.

CapCom: Okay, we’re on the middeck and we’re watching you. Go ahead.

Ride: Okay, let me see if I can find my cue cards here… When I activated it… let me see if I can find some times… Okay, I activated it at two days, twenty hours, 43 minutes, and as soon as we started the system status check, we got an out-of-range on compressor one, and it reading zero, essentially. It’s since gone up, and I don’t think it’s a problem. I can give you a readout on that if you want, but it was up to 1,5, or so, by the end of the status check. I kept going, and when we started the system’s duo check, when I started it, we got an out-of-range on delta P1, and it tripped, I think, about 13.8. I think it is set to trip at 13.7. It went up as high as, I’m sorry, negative 13.7. It went up as high as negative 18.5, and it looks like it’s coming down now. I got a readout on delta P1, delta P2, delta P3, and delta P4, if you’re interested in them.

CapCom: Sure, we’d like to hear those, Sally.

Ride: I figured you would. Okay. I’m reading the current values. Delta P1 is minus .1, delta P4 is 1.0, delta P3 is minus 2, and hold on a second. Let me call up delta P2… Delta P2 is .4. And that’s quite a bit different than they were. I can give you the original values for when we started the systems, or the zero voltage check, if you’d like them.

CapCom: Yes, we’d like those, too.

Ride: Okay. Beginning with zero voltage, delta P1 was minus 17.4, delta P2 was minus 5.4, delta P3 was 13.2, and delta P4 was plus 2.4. So, it looks like the system has stabilized throughout this zero voltage check… Looks like it’s going pretty good now…

CapCom: Okay. And we’ll get back with a confirmation on that, Sally.

Ride: (…) And T.J., if you’d like, we can give you a short description of what we’ve done so far in the CFES. We’re really not very far into it yet. We just started things, but I could describe the problem to you if you like.

CapCom: Yes, please go ahead, Sally.

Ride: Okay. First of all, we’ve got two cameras set up down in the middeck. I don’t know if Rick told you or not, one of them is a wide-view that’s looking straight at the CFES, and one is a close-in view. From the wide-view, I think you can see that the bottom part, which is where the syringe goes in, and from the close-in view, you can probably see the syringe right now. We are running six samples through the next couple of days, and each sample is contained in a syringe. At the beginning of that sample collection we put the syringe down here in the bottom (garble)… It goes right in the bottom, and then the sample is driven out by a pump that eventually gets flowing up into the chamber. And of course, the purpose of that experiment is to send the material up through, to feed it up into the bumper, which is flowing from the bottom of the cone up to the top, or what is flowing from the bottom of the cone up to the top, or what on Earth is the bottom to the top… Jon, I’m not sure what way it is anymore…

CapCom: I guess right now it’s top to bottom.

Ride: That’s what got me into the zero-g business – it’s kind of fun. In any case, it takes nearly ten minutes to get all the way from the bottom to the top, so this really isn’t a high-speed activity. As it’s flowing up, we put an electric field on it, across the fluid, and that separates the materials in the sample. And the point, of course, is to separate out the protein material that we’re interested in. And different compositions, different proteins, get separated by a different amount, so by the time it gets up here to the top, to the collection tubes, the various proteins are sort of spread out across the top. And by collecting them in I think what’s about 200 different tubes up here, we collect a different material in each tube. And we won’t be getting around to collecting the first sample for another hour or hour and a half. But when we do, we’ll be opening this trap door here and putting a collector tray in, and it drives up, drives the needles down into some of these tubes in here and collects the material through the top.

CapCom: Well, thank you kindly for all that description. You’d make an excellent tour guide of science on the shuttle.

Ride: Isn’t science wonderful? Actually, we’re not going to be seeing much action here at all. Why, we don’t even get the first part of the sample going through for another, I guess, 30 minutes. So I can’t even describe to you what the sample looks like yet. The first sample is going to be a NASA sample, not one of the McDonnell Douglas samples – and it’s an all-American sample. It’s got three color dyes in it, red white and blue.

CapCom: Now, that sounds wonderful. And we’re just now losing the picture…


At 4:22 a.m. CDT, the PAO said, “Challenger has moved out of range of Dakar now. Next acquisition through the Indian Ocean Station in eleven minutes… The crew, at signoff there, said that they might plan to give us some unscheduled TV later today, middeck area… We have been anticipating TV on orbit number 48 at Goldstone and Merritt Island. Challenger presently on orbit 47... So, we would expect some TV on the next stateside pass.”


PAO: This is Shuttle Control, two days, 21 hours, 49 minutes Mission Elapsed Time, Challenger about to be acquired at the Indian Ocean Station…

CapCom (Jon McBride): And Challenger, we’re back with you at Indy for about six minutes.

Ride: We hear you, T.J. And T.J., let me read these CFES pressure to you again.

CapCom: Okay. Go ahead, Sally.

Ride: Ah, sounds like Jon.

CapCom: Yes, everybody confuses us.

Ride: I can see why… (…) Okay, Jon, I did just start the sample flow with no voltage. I’ve got a… delta P3 is 14.2, delta P1 is 15.4, delta P2 is 1.5 and stand by… delta P4 is 5.8.

CapCom: Copy those. (…) And Sally, since you’ve started the flow already, go ahead and press on.

Ride: Okay, good. I’ll keep going. Thanks… and just let me know if you need any more numbers for some troubleshooting.

CapCom: Okay, go ahead.

Ride: No, I said let me know if you need any more.

CapCom: Okay, I’ll do that. We’ve got a little less than a minute here. We’ll see you at Yarragadee at 22:05.

Ride: See you there.

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G’DAY MATE!

CapCom: And Challenger, we’re back with you at Yarragadee for eight minutes… Challenger, we’re with you at Yarragadee for seven minutes and check for a stuck key… Challenger, Houston, how do you read? – Challenger, Houston, how do you read?

Hauck: Loud and clear, Jon. How about me?

CapCom: Okay, we finally got you. We think maybe there was a key stuck.

Hauck: Okay. Anything for us now?

CapCom: Not really.

Hauck: Okay, Jon, the first thing is, since we’re passing over the fair country of Australia that Captain Joe Kerwin and their nation might be listening. And we’d like to thank him very much for the very kind telegram that he sent us prior to launch, and we’d like to send him and all the folks that are supporting us down there in Australia our best wishes.

CapCom: I’m sure They’ll all appreciate that.


Since April 1982 veteran astronaut Joseph P. Kerwin, who in 1973 flew as Science Pilot aboard Skylab 2, had served as NASA’s senior science representative in Australia. He was to stay there as liaison between the space agency’s Office of Space Tracking and Data Systems and Australia’s Department of Science and Technology until December 1983.

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KEY QUESTIONS

CapCom: (…) And Rick, you mentioned earlier another TV pass. We have one scheduled for CFES here at the next Buckhorn pass. Did you want one in addition to that sometime today?

Hauck: Houston, Challenger, how do you read?

CapCom: Read you loud and clear… Challenger, you got a continuous key? Challenger, how do you read? – Challenger, how do you read?

Hauck: Loud and clear.

CapCom: Okay. Somebody onboard we think maybe has a continuous key.

Hauck: Okay, we’ll check it out.

Fabian: …And Houston, Challenger, how do you read?

CapCom: Reading you loud and clear, John… John, you’re the one that has the continuous key. Every time you key, it stays on for a minute or two…

PAO: This is Shuttle Control, Yarragadee has Loss of Signal now…

Ride: Challenger to Jon.

CapCom: I’m reading you loud and clear, Sally… And Challenger, sounds like every time John Fabian keys his mike we get a continuous key for one or two minutes…


“LOS at Yarragadee, next station is Hawaii in 19 minutes,” the PAO continued. “Considerable trouble with UHF communications during this Yarragadee pass; apparently one of the crewmen’s key sticks when he transmits, which wipes out the communications.” Earlier that morning the astronauts already had had technical difficulties with low batteries and damaged antennas on the WCCU, the Wireless Crew Communications System. Now they seemed to be having problems with the keys of their Headset Interface Units.


CapCom: Challenger, we’re back with you over Hawaii for about two and a half minutes.

Crippen: Okay, how do you read me, Big Jon?

CapCom: Read you loud and clear now. We think maybe somebody had a continuous key back there, maybe VOX or something like that with max sensitivity.

Crippen: No, we haven’t been using VOX; we’ve had a couple of these HIUs hang up on us with keying before. But we’re back with you.


At 5:15 a.m. CDT, 2/22:42 MET, with Challenger coming into range of the Buckhorn station, Jon McBride and Bob Crippen again were trying to find the cause of the persistent com problem. Houston now centered in on the Audio Central Control Unit, the heart of the orbiter’s communications system.


CapCom: …We’re trying to figure out a configuration here, and we wonder if you did a panel command a while back.

Crippen: That’s a negative. No.

CapCom: Okay, Crip, it looks like if we didn’t do one on purpose, we got one inadvertently.

Crippen: No, no, we had a… back when we were over Australia here, somebody did a panel command; so you’re right.

CapCom: Did anybody change the ACCU?

Crippen: Say again.

CapCom: Did anyone change the ACCU?

Crippen: Say again your last, Jon (garble)…

CapCom: Did anybody change the ACCU?

Crippen: Negative.

CapCom: Okay, we’re going to go back to our original configuration, and you’ll get a NSP (Network Signal Processor) message.

Crippen: Roger that.

CapCom: (…) And right now we have a constant key on somebody’s UHF.

Crippen: Okay, let me go around and turn… I will turn mine off over here on O5, then see if that corrects the problem.

CapCom: Okay.

Crippen: Did that change anything? Test – one, two, three, four.

CapCom: We’re checking. And while we’re doing that, would you give us command on the TV?

Crippen: I was going to handle the TV for this pass.

CapCom: Okay. And we still have a constant key, Crip.

Crippen: Okay, here comes the middeck off; the middeck is off now for UHF.

CapCom: We’re checking. Okay, that was where the problem was.

Crippen: Okay, we’ll leave it off for a while.


And so they were able to isolate the constant UHF transmitter keying problem to the middeck audio control panel Air-to-Air (A/A) loop which was selected in the Transmit/Receive (T/R) mode. The problem was cleared by selecting A/A in the receive-only mode.

[Ares67]

JELLY BEANS AND BASEBALL TALK

Crippen: Are you taking TV now?

CapCom: Yes, sir. We’ve got your patch right now.

Crippen: Okay, we thank you. We want to show you something else that we got. Recently the crew of Flight 7 had an opportunity to visit the President. He supplied us with one of his favorite candies, some jelly beans straight from the White House that we’ve been enjoying up here.

CapCom: Looks tasty. Better grab them.

Crippen: And we’ve been grabbing them a little bit. There’s Captain Hauck making a famous grab.

CapCom: The Astros could have used him last night; they lost another one.

Crippen: And Big Jon, it’s a little easier to make the catches here.

CapCom: That’s affirm.


So, the astronauts were having a little fun with President Reagan’s gift. Now guess what Flight Director John Cox was asked by an “investigative journalist” during the afternoon briefing: “Were the jelly beans official cargo?” – Yes, indeed they were officially listed on the food manifest… all in accordance with regulations.

“We took up some, and we released them, and we took a photo or two of that, and we kind of bounced around in there eating jellybeans out of the air,” John Fabian recounted in his 2006 interview for the JSC Oral History Project, adding, “I’ve still got my original jar of jellybeans. Over the twenty-odd years, they’ve kind of congealed into this. But the jar is unopened. It’s never been opened. It’s a virgin jar of jellybeans from the President.”

[Ares67]

[Ares67]

LIFE IS BUT A STREAM

Ride: And Jon, just to give you an update on the CFES, we’ve got the sample flowing in here and I know that unfortunately you can’t see it through this, it’s really a pretty sample. It starts off… before the separation it was a deep purple, and now it’s starting to separate into three distinct streams, and we do have a blue one on the far left, a white one in the middle, and a red one on the outside. And it’s really nice. We may try and see if we can get a color TV close-up of that later on for you. It’s really pretty.

CapCom: Okay.

Crippen: And Ed’s got the TV.

CapCom: He’s starting to smile.

Crippen: Got to keep Ed smiling. (…)

Ride: …And Jon, if you can have INCO call up the flight deck camera, we’ve got the CFES stream. And that’s what you’ve got right now.

CapCom: Yes, we’re seeing that right now, Sally. And we can in fact see the separate streams.

Ride: That’s great. (…) Okay, I was just going to give you a little bit of a description of the streams for the CFES people. It looks like we’re seeing a few standing waves, oscillations, but no wavering of the stream. It looks like the streams are kind of sinusoidal, but they don’t seem to be wavering back and forth. And we’ll test the execute numbers for them once the sample gets to the top; it’s not quite up to the top yet. (…)

PAO: This is Shuttle Control, Challenger has moved out of range at Ascension Island, which had some overlapping coverage with Dakar on this orbit; next acquisition, Botswana in seven minutes 15 seconds. CFES operations continuing; those operations scheduled to continue for the next several hours. At two days, 23 hours, 16 minutes Mission Elapsed Time, this is Shuttle Control Houston.


During the following four-minute pass at Botswana Sally Ride reported that she had just finished the successful collection of CFES sample number 1. When Challenger had reached the mainland U.S. again, Houston asked whether she was having the same problem getting the number 2 syringe in as previously with the number 1 sample. “Sally reports no problems getting the number 2 syringe in,” said Bob Crippen, because Ride was busy conducting the second electrophoresis experiment. “She’s in the process right now of putting in a new sample tray and would like to chat with you as soon as she’s finished with that activity.” During passage of the Merritt Island Launch Area station, Ride went on the air again.


Ride: And Jon, if you got a minute, I’m ready to tell you where I am in the CFES.

CapCom: Okay, go ahead, Sally.

Ride: Okay. We are collecting sample 2 right now; the collector is up and all the right lights are on and everything. It looks good. The one thing that is unusual about this, and I think it happened on the last run, although I’m not so sure… but the deflection, the overall deflection of the stream seems to be more than, more than I was expecting anyway… In fact, it looks like… it’s a little bit hard to tell, because the streams are pretty diffused and a little bit hard to see. But the third stream over to the right seems to be out to the edge of the, out to the edge of the tube, and I think it’s hitting the edge. And it looks like its just kind of sliding up the right-hand side of the column. (…) And John, I’m looking more closely at the exit tube numbers right now, and I may have been wrong about what I told you. Right now the first stream, the one furthest left, is exiting between 60 and 80.

CapCom: Copy, Sally.

Ride: And the second one looks like it’s starting at 100 and goes over to about 120.

CapCom: Copy.

Ride: And the third one is very hard to see, but it looks like its starting at around 150.

CapCom: Copy that.

Ride: Yeah, I guess I took a couple of extra pictures trying to document where it looked like it was running into the wall down towards the middle of the column. So, I don’t know if there’s a problem or not.

CapCom: It sounds okay to the CFES folks.

Ride: Okay, that’s good. (…) And Jon, you can tell them that we just got another record filled. And this one is echo 8-0-0.

CapCom: Copy. Echo 8-0-0.

Ride: That’s right.

CapCom: We’re about thirty seconds to LOS here; we’ll see you down at Dakar in about six minutes. And Sally, due to one of those record fills… we’re not getting flow ones, so the CFES folks would like for you to read that out, each time you take a separation voltage. That would help.

Ride: Okay. I’ll read out (garble) separation voltages, and the separation voltages for the (garble) were both 232. And the collection is complete.

CapCom: Thank you.

[Ares67]

HOT MEAL AND COLD SOAK

At 7:09 a.m. CDT, 3/00:36 MET, with her payload bay pointing at deep space to help cool down the SPAS, Challenger went LOS over Bermuda. The crew was getting ready to grab a bite of lunch. When the orbiter came into reach of Dakar a little less than seven minutes later, Bob Crippen told Houston, “Okay, Jon, we hear you and we’re enjoying noodles and chicken and turkey.” The CapCom responded, “Sounds good.” Obviously not in the mood to talk business at that moment, the Commander added, “It’s tough to respond to you with a mouthful of food.”

But “Big Jon” still wanted to discuss the next steps concerning SPAS-01. “And Crip, while you’re eating there, if you’re in the mood to listen, I can give you a quick overview of what we intend to do with the SPAS today and tomorrow.” – “Jon, Crip and John aren’t on comm now,” came the reply from Earth orbit, “and if you could wait for just a few minutes, it’d be better for us.” – “That’s fine,” McBride said. “Let us know when it’s a good time.” Because Challenger would get out of range of the Dakar station, both crew and Mission Control agreed on using the upcoming seven-minute pass over Botswana starting at 7:29 a.m. CDT, 3/00:56 MET.


Crippen: Okay, Big Jon. John and I are standing by to talk about the SPAS.

CapCom: Okay, Crip. The big overview is we’re going to leave you in this deep-space pointing attitude for the remainder of the day and let you go back to minus-ZLV for the sleep period. And the reason we’re doing it is to let the SPAS get a good cold soak. We had intended on doing a short checkout this afternoon, but we decided not to do another thermal cycle on the thing. We think it’ll work well tomorrow. So we’re going to leave it where it is, do a short checkout tomorrow, and proceed on with the test from there.

Crippen: Okay. Is that checkout going to be where we would normally check out the SPAS?

CapCom: We’ll work up those procedures and they’ll come up to you tonight.

Crippen: Okiedokie. And somebody will come up with the approximate time you want us to go back to ZLV?

CapCom: Yes, sir.

Crippen: Okay, I copy that. That sounds good to me. And we’re, we’re still planning this afternoon to activate the friction experiment on time and stop the MAUS 1 experiment, no earlier than 04:28 by my calculation.

CapCom: And those comments are correct… And Crip, we’re open to any other further comments you might have as far as adjusting sleep periods or anything else you might want to do to make things run a little smoother.

Crippen: Okay. How much time do they think that some adjustment in sleep period is going to be required? We’re already pulling it forward two hours tonight.

CapCom: We’re estimating that the checkout in the morning will be approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

Crippen: And do you think that’s in it on top of what we already have?

CapCom: We’re looking at deleting that course align which may alleviate some of the problem.

Crippen: Go ahead. Yes, I think that’ll work out pretty good then, so I think we can hack it within the time period we have.

CapCom: Okay. And if you have any other comments about it, the remainder of the day we’re open for anything.

Crippen: Okay, that sounds good. And I’ll just plan to use the post-sleep period, or a portion of it in the morning so we’re ready to go on time. And we’ll look forward to seeing the procedures when you’re ready to send them up.

CapCom: Okay. And the latest word is we will try to get you those procedures up this afternoon, so you can mull them over a little bit before you go to sleep this evening.

Crippen: It would make it a heck of a lot easier if you could.

CapCom: Okay.

Crippen: Sir, we look forward to doing business with you.

CapCom: Thank you, sir… And John, we’d like to go ahead and start the friction experiment as soon as you feel it’s reasonable to do.

Fabian: Okay. I’ll give you a time back on that, but it’ll be within the next minute or two. How’s that?

CapCom: That’s great. (…)

Fabian: Okay, Jon, I’m ready to activate the friction experiment at this time and I’d like to assume that the friction temperature is still within limits; it’s been within limits during the entire operation and that way I don’t have to power the DHS.

CapCom: You may assume that.

Fabian: Okay, it’s in work and I’ll give you a (garble).

Crippen: Jon, do you guys think we can stay in this attitude until IMU align and then just go pick up the IMU and then go from there to ZLV?

CapCom: Right now that’s the plan, Crip.

Crippen: Okay. That sounds reasonable.

Fabian: Okay, Jon, friction was activated at 01:02:30 (7:35 a.m. CDT), and I’m going to keep the circuit breaker and the panel active switch on until the completion of the friction experiment.

CapCom: Thank you, sir. We copy that. We’ve got about a minute left here at Botswana. We’ll see you at Yarragadee at 01:17.

Crippen: 01:17.

PAO: This is Mission Control Houston, Loss of Signal at Botswana. The crew during the Botswana pass was instructed to leave the spacecraft in a deep-space-pointing attitude, i.e. with the payload bay continuously away from the Sun. Inertly fixed in attitude for the next several hours at least until prior to the sleep period, and then another lift will be made, although we need to stay in that attitude; primarily this is for cooling down the overheated component in the SPAS pallet satellite. The friction experiment was activated during the pass at Botswana. Later today the cabin will be repressurized to the 14.7 normal operating pressure, after some 29 and a half hours at 10.2 pounds per square inch. Yarragadee upcoming in eleven minutes… Day 3, zero hours, five minutes… one hour, five minutes, this is Mission Control Houston.
   

Nearing the end of orbit 49, on the final Yarragadee pass of the morning, Challenger was greeted by incoming Granite Team CapCom John Blaha. At 8:02 a.m. CDT, AOS over Guam marked the official start of orbit 50 for this mission. During the following pass of the Hawaiian Islands, which began at 8:15 a.m. CDT, Sally Ride reported that the collection of the third CFES sample was complete; John Fabian reported success on step 2 of the Friction Pressure Loss experiment; Norm Thagard asked Houston if they had received the latest batch of biomed data he had sent down to Earth about half an hour earlier, while additional troubleshooting procedures were passed up to the crew in another attempt to sort out what was wrong with the CRT-3 display. The hope had been that a long period of power down might have helped – but Bob Crippen reported no joy; the monitor stayed blank.

[Ares67]

SPACE JAM

At the conclusion of the following stateside passage the Commander had to inform Houston of another failure: The Text and Graphics System, short TAGS, had shut down due to a paper jam after having printed out only the first sheet of a total of five pages transmitted by the ground. When Challenger came into range of the Ascension station at 8:52 a.m. CDT, CapCom John Blaha had this advice: “You all are welcome to look at the TAGS with a flashlight or something if you want, but we would like to preserve the condition that it is in when it shut down. And as well, if you could save the paper for us that it put out.” Then:


CapCom: And Crip, we are going to power the TAGS back on here to take a look at its condition.

Crippen: Okay, if its capable of transmitting, you might send up another piece of paper.

CapCom: Okay, we’ll check on that… And Crip, we would like to know if you think by looking at the TAGS that the jam is cleared.

Crippen: Uh, there’s no way I can tell… unless you want me to go and open up the front door which exposes (garble)…

CapCom: No, that’s okay, don’t do that. We’ll sort out what we want to do.

Crippen: I thought you could fire it up and get another track.

CapCom: Okay, we have powered it up; we’re looking at it. We think the jam is still there, and we haven’t decided whether we’re going to try to send another piece of paper.

Crippen: Okay, we understand.


They would finally decide against sending another TAGS message. The paper had failed to move through the developer in the hard copier. This same problem had occurred previously during qualification testing on the ground. Moisture collected on the paper feed guides internal to the developer and caused the paper to adhere to the guides. New guides, with slots, that precluded the problem had already been developed and demonstrated, but there had been insufficient time to incorporate the modification in the unit flown on STS-7.

Postflight the vendor found an occasional paper hangup. However, the main cause of the anomaly was found to be a physical misalignment of the paper feed plate with the developer housing. One of two locator dowel pins was pushed back and was not in the plate alignment hole. The plate was slightly askew and this caused the paper to hang up.

The STS-7 IFA report concluded that during hard copier assembly, a locator dowel pin had been improperly installed which allowed misalignment of the paper feed plate with the developer housing and this had caused a paper hang-up in the hard copier. After Challenger’s return to the Orbiter Processing Facility a modified TAGS unit, originally destined to fly aboard Columbia STS-9, was to be installed and subsequently flown on STS-8. In exchange the failed TAGS unit would be properly reassembled, receive the new paper guides, and then be put into Columbia’s middeck.

[Ares67]

IT IS VERY COLD… IN SPACE

“Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the old Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold... in space.”

-  Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban), “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,“ Paramount Pictures, 1982


CapCom: And Crip, from the data we have, it appears there’s a chance of damaging the mass spec. We would like you to go ahead and return to ZLV now.

Crippen: Okay, understand I’ve got to go to return to ZLV at this time?

CapCom: That’s affirmative. And we’re LOS in fifteen seconds; see you at Botswana at 2 plus 32.

Crippen: 2 plus 32.(9:05 a.m. CDT)

PAO: Mission Control Houston, LOS at Ascension, three minutes and a little gap across the South Atlantic to reacquisition through Botswana. The SPAS payload managers have asked that the orbiter be turned back to Z Local Vertical attitude, away from the deep space cold soak. Since their mass spectrometer is getting cold again, colder than was expected, Crippen is presently going to that ZLV attitude…


“At the end of the previous shift we’d gone to this cool down attitude for the SPAS,” Flight Director John Cox explained during the 3:00 p.m. CDT briefing at JSC. “It turns out that after looking at the data, I think, some of the experimenters were surprised to see the temperature drop off quite as rapidly as it did. And so we terminated that attitude after only about two and a half hours and went back to ZLV. The orbiter longeron temps were showing temperatures close to zero, or some of them had already begun to go below zero, and the mass spectrometer has a critical limit of minus 20. So, keeping that in mind, the prudent thing to do would be to terminate that.”

Asked about the normal operating temperature of SPAS and what the upper limit was before you had to turn the experiments off, Cox explained, “I can’t give you a design criteria, but the parameter that we were watching was a temperature transducer intentionally placed in the integrated circuit and the Data Handling System that was known to have to pass the most current and was known to be the highest temperature. The upper limit was 115 degrees centigrade, which we were trying to stay below. I think we got to 114.5 or something in that ballpark; that would translate into something in excess of 200, maybe between 200, 210 degrees Fahrenheit, somewhere in that ballpark.”

Cox continued, “The SPAS folks told us that that equipment had been tested to 125 degrees centigrade, and that being the case we felt fairly confident that we had not done any significant damage. They did report though in some of their thermal testing that sometimes you would get some intermittent operations until you’d cool it back down again, and so that’s why we took the action we did today.”


CapCom: And Challenger, Houston, we’ll be going LOS at Hawaii here with you in one minute. We’ll see you at Buckhorn at 3 plus 27 (10:00 a.m. CDT) and we would appreciate any comments you have on the cabin temperature today. (…) Challenger, Houston with you at Buckhorn for six minutes...

Crippen: Okay, loud and clear. And regarding cabin temp, I think most of us felt a little bit chilly when we woke up this morning. In fact I ended up turning on some of my panel lighting just before wakeup just to try to warm things up a little bit. And we tried going to full cool and that all of us too cold; so we backed off to 2/3 cool and that’s been relatively comfortable all day.

CapCom: Roger, we copy, Crip, and thanks for the data.

Crippen: You’re quite welcome, sir.

CapCom: And Crip, if you have any general comments to give us on anything that’s different from 10.7 compared to 14.7 we would be interested.

Crippen: I really don’t think that there is any difference from my standpoint, from a physical comfort or anything like that… I had a couple of little problems last night trying to get it set up, but we managed to get it set up okay for sleep and we did that adjustment prior to the CFES this morning; and all that seemed to work out very well.

CapCom: Okay, that’s what the data on the ground show. We thank you very much.

Crippen: Yes, sir.

CapCom: Challenger, Houston, we’re going LOS in thirty seconds; we’ll see you at Ascension at 3 plus 59 (10:32 a.m. CDT).

Crippen: Roger that.

PAO: This is Mission Control Houston, Loss of Signal at Buckhorn, final stateside pass of the day, midway though orbit 51… STS-7 Commander Bob Crippen reported that there’s no difference either in comfort or in operations in keeping the cabin pressure down at 10.2 psi and the standard 14.7, which they’ll return to in the next hour. 10.2 is equivalent to about 11,200 foot altitude on Earth, somewhat above the timber line in the Rockies. However, the percentage of oxygen is somewhat higher in the cabin than it is at that altitude on Earth. Next station Ascension in 23 minutes, day three, three hours, 35 minutes, Mission Control Houston.

CapCom: Challenger, Houston with you at Ascension for a short pass. And I have a switch change for you back on A7L.

Crippen: Okay, go ahead, John.

CapCom: Roger. If you’d put the MADS (Modular Auxiliary Data System) strain gauge to on, please.

Crippen: Okay, MADS strain gauge is on now.

CapCom: Thank you. We just wanted to do that because the strain gauges got cold during our deep space attitude.

Crippen: Need to keep them warm for sure, for sure… Thank you.

CapCom: Roger, and we’ll see… we’re going to go LOS here in thirty seconds; we’ll see you at Botswana at 4 plus 08 (10:41 a.m. CDT).

Crippen: Bye, bye.