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#220 by Endeavour118 on 28 May, 2007 04:26
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For support personal TAL maron Isn't There a change? Scooter is the entry STA for edwards afb right?
Support..........Name................Name...............Name
MMT/JSC..........John Shannon
MMT/KSC..........LeRoy Cain
STS Team 4.......Mike Sarafin
ISS Team 4.......Sally Davis
MOD Rep..........Phil Engelauf.......Paul Hill
Moscow FD........N/A
Weather Coord....Mark Polansky
Launch STA.......Steve Lindsey
Entry STA........Steve Lindsey (KSC)
Entry STA........Scott Altman
TAL Zaragoza.....James Dutton
TAL Istres.......Eric Boe
TAL Moron........William Ofelein
STA Shadow.......Al Drew.............Steve Bowen
JSC PAO/KSC......Nicole Clutier
Astro Support....Mike Good (lead)....Jose Hernandez.....Kay Hire
Families.........Sandy Magnus........Karen Nyberg.......Chris Ferguson -
#221 by psloss on 28 May, 2007 11:11
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Quote
Endeavour118 - 28/5/2007 12:26 AM
Isn't that Bill Harwood's data?For support personal TAL maron Isn't There a change? Scooter is the entry STA for edwards afb right?
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/117/117personnel.html
If so, he would be a good person to ask.
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#222 by Fabien on 28 May, 2007 15:08
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Anyone could remind me what's the job of the filght support TAL people if needed during the launch ? thx !
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#223 by mkirk on 28 May, 2007 15:41
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Quote
Fabien - 28/5/2007 10:08 AM
Anyone could remind me what's the job of the filght support TAL people if needed during the launch ? thx !
Astronaut TAL representatives are in contact with the Missions Control Center via the weather CAPCOMs during the final hours of the countdown. They fly weather reconnaissance and help coordinate logistical support.
Mark Kirkman
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#224 by avitek on 28 May, 2007 16:24
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A short chemistry lecture:
Monopropellant (APU, HPU):
Hydrazine - NH2NH2, melting point (m.p.) +2.0 deg C, boiling point (b.p.) 113.5 deg C, colourless oily liquid, poisonous, skin etching, flammable, hygroscopic
Catalytic decomposition:
NH2-NH2 --> N2 + 2H2
Products: hot mixture of gaseous nitrogen and hydrogen
Hypergolic bipropellant (RCS and OMS):
Oxidizer:
Nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) N2O4 (in reality equilibrium mixture of 2NO2 <---> N2O4), m.p. -11.2 deg C, b.p. +21.1 deg C, red-brown volatile liquid, highly poisonous, skin etching (in presence of water forms nitric acid)
Fuel:
Monomethylhydrazine CH3NH-NH2, m.p. -52.5 deg C., b.p. 87.5 deg C, colourless liquid, hygroscopic, poisonous, flammable
Reaction with NTO:
4CH3NH-NH2 + 5N2O4 --> 9N2 + 4CO2 + 12H2O
Products: hot mixture of gaseous nitrogen, carbon dioxide a water wapour; traces of different oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide due to the incomplete burn reaction present
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#225 by ShuttleDiscovery on 28 May, 2007 16:54
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A nice day for launch preps...
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#226 by HWS Rat on 29 May, 2007 01:02
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The White box is an cover to APU Fueling Cart #3.
HWS Rat
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#227 by Chris Bergin on 29 May, 2007 01:20
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Quote
HWS Rat - 29/5/2007 2:02 AM
The White box is an cover to APU Fueling Cart #3.
HWS Rat
We should have ran a quiz on this (not that I'd know what to give as a prize ) - you beat our resident pad rats on this one!
Welcome to the site. -
#228 by MKremer on 29 May, 2007 03:17
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Quote
HWS Rat - 28/5/2007 8:02 PM
Thanks. Being covered and its position assumes some type of temp device/structure, but it's nice to know what that really is and thus why there's a cover over it.
The White box is an cover to APU Fueling Cart #3.
HWS Rat
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#229 by Chris Bergin on 29 May, 2007 03:20
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http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5113 - NASA decide against COPV change for Atlantis ahead of STS-117
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#230 by Avron on 29 May, 2007 04:41
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Quote
Chris Bergin - 28/5/2007 9:20 PM
QuoteHWS Rat - 29/5/2007 2:02 AM
The White box is an cover to APU Fueling Cart #3.
HWS Rat
We should have ran a quiz on this (not that I'd know what to give as a prize ) - you beat our resident pad rats on this one!
Welcome to the site.
Amazing... now that would have been a bonus prize for identifying it as "#3"
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#231 by mkirk on 29 May, 2007 13:29
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Quote
Avron - 28/5/2007 11:41 PM
QuoteChris Bergin - 28/5/2007 9:20 PM
QuoteHWS Rat - 29/5/2007 2:02 AM
The White box is an cover to APU Fueling Cart #3.
HWS Rat
We should have ran a quiz on this (not that I'd know what to give as a prize ) - you beat our resident pad rats on this one!
Welcome to the site.
Amazing... now that would have been a bonus prize for identifying it as "#3"
Actually identifying it as #3 would have been the easy part since APU 3 is the only one on the right side of the vehicle. However, I am pretty familiar with most of the pad equipment and I had no idea what the bloody thing in the picture was.
Mark Kirkman
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#232 by shuttlefan on 29 May, 2007 13:29
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I see the hatch is open. Back to work! Hopefully their hard work pays off on the 8th!
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#233 by on 29 May, 2007 13:53
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Hopefully some hard work this week and next week will pay off next Friday. GO ATLANTIS
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#234 by psloss on 29 May, 2007 14:05
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Quote
rdale - 22/5/2007 10:47 AM
QuoteChris Bergin - 21/5/2007 9:45 PM
for the new people here, make sure you've got your seatbeats on!
...and please don't post one liners that consist primarily of:
"that's good news"
"only xx days to go"
"nice pics"
"let's keep our fingers crossed"
"i hope the weather stays nice"
"any more information on the ... "
I would like to echo Rob's week-old request for a little restraint on these type of posts.
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#235 by outward on 29 May, 2007 15:52
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Quote
mkirk - 26/5/2007 11:10 AM
QuoteDaveS - 26/5/2007 5:59 AM
QuoteGekko0481 - 26/5/2007 12:19 PM
Technically this is correct. The Hydraulic Power Units(HPUs) use raw hydrazine to provide the hydraulic pressure needed to operate the Thrust Vector Control system on the SRBs.Quotejacqmans - 26/5/2007 3:12 AM
This week, the hypergolic propellants were loaded into the
orbiter and solid rocket boosters.
The SRBs use hypergols as well?
I would like to emphasize that the hydrazine that is used for the orbiter auxiliary power units (APUs) and the solid rocket booster hydraulic power units (HPUs) is anhydrous hydrazine which is different than the monomethyl hydrazine used by the reaction control system (RCS) and orbital maneuvering system (OMS).
For the APUs and HPUs the anhydrous (meaning waterless) hydrazine is injected across a Shell 405 catalyst which decomposes the hydrazine into a hot gas that is used to drive the turbine within the power unit.
For the OMS and RCS, monomethyl hydrazine is mixed with nitrogen tetroxide in the respective combustion chambers to provide a “hypergolic reaction” (i.e. no ignition source required) and engine thrust. What is nice about having the same propellant for both the OMS and RCS is that you can interconnect the OMS tanks to the RCS to provide them with additional fuel for nominal flight operations and aborts. However, the RCS tanks cannot feed the OMS engines because the larger engines would quickly overwhelm/starve the small RCS tanks causing structural damage to the tanks.
Mark Kirkman
Hi Mark,
I know I'm heading off on a tangent in this tread (sorry Chris), but I was wondering, does the shell 405 catalyst need to be at a reasonably high temperature to do its work on the hydrazine? If so, where does the initial heat come from? -
#236 by avitek on 29 May, 2007 18:56
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About working temperatures of catalyst:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0104-66322003000300007&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en
Several compounds were tested in hydrazine decomposition catalysis. They were considered inadequate for space applications because of their inaptitude to start the reaction at low temperatures (cold start) with acceptable time delays and their poor mechanical resistance to the stresses of the decomposition process. The development of the Shell 405 (30%Ir/Al2O3) catalyst by the Shell Company represented a fundamental technological milestone in the use of hydrazine in satellite micropropulsion systems. This catalyst is able to decompose low-temperature (275 K) liquid hydrazine in a very reproducible manner [Armstrong et al., 1978a, 1978b, 1980]. Thanks to this process, hydrazine monopropellant systems became very simple and highly reliable. Presently, the Shell 405 ABSG catalyst allows hundreds of cold starts (293 K) without appreciable mechanical degradation (at least for the first 100 cold starts) over a million hot pulses (373 K) and continuous shots of several hours, when the catalyst bed reaches temperatures as high as 1373 K, all with a time delays of less than 10 ms.
275 K = +2 deg C = 36 deg F
293 K = +20 deg C = 68 deg F
1373 K = 1100 deg C = 2012 deg F
But this Shell 305 catalyst (pellets of alumina containing cca. 30 to 35 % iridium) leads to the decomposition reaction
3NH2NH2 --> N2 + 4NH3
i.e. decomposition to a mixture of nitrogen a ammonia. This is somewhat less efficient (in term of generated volume) than decomposition to nitrogen/hydrogen mixture.
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#237 by jacqmans on 29 May, 2007 20:39
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#238 by Mark Max Q on 30 May, 2007 00:15
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When will the flight days start and end? On ISS time, so early morning US time?
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#239 by sts1canada on 30 May, 2007 00:48
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The flight plan for STS-117 is listed at Bill Harwood's Space Place site (link below). If Atlantis lifts off on June 8th as planned, the flight days after flight day 1 (launch day) start when the STS-117 crew wakes up each mission day. For a launch attempt on June 8th, the crew will awake at 9:38 EDT (1:38 PM GMT) and go to bed at 1:08 AM EDT (5:08 AM GMT) to complete flight day 2. As the mission proceeds the start time (wakeup) time for the crew (flight day start) occurs earlier to match up the crew awake time for a landing at KSC or EDW over a week later. If the launch is delayed past June 8th, the times listed below in the flight plan will occur earlier for us on the ground (this has no impact to the crew or ISS ops).
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html#FLIGHTPLAN
Richard
