Category Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006

Flight Crew

ZALETIN, Sergei Viktorovich, 37, Russian Air Force, commander KALERI, Aleksandr Yuriyevich, civilian, flight engineer, 3rd mission Previous missions: Soyuz 14 (1992); Soyuz TM24 (1996)

Flight Log

After months of uncertainty, the funding for a new expedition to the Mir complex, the 29th, came from a new private corporation based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. MirCorp was 60 per cent owned by RKK Energiya and shared with the venture capital group Gold and Appel and other entrepreneurs. The crew assigned to return to Mir were authorised by the Russian government to complete their mission, which included two new Progress cargo craft and a programme that could have extended into August 2000, a 70- to 90-day mission. MirCorp had also indicated that they had received authorisation from Energiya to lease Mir for space tourism, in-orbit advertising, industrial production and science, turning the station into a commercial space facility. NASA, quite understandably, was not happy about this sequence of events.

Soyuz TM30 launched from Baikonur on 4 April and docked with the station two days later. After a check of onboard systems and hatch integrity, the two cosmonauts opened the hatches and floated into the station, occupying it for the first time in eight months. For most of the first two weeks, the cosmonauts were occupied with house­keeping and bringing the station back into operation. One of their primary objectives was to establish whether the aging station could support the plans that MirCorp was promoting. An EVA was completed on 12 May and lasted for 4 hours 52 minutes. This was to be the final excursion from the Mir complex. The crew performed a test of a sealing compound on the hull of the station, an operation that had been delayed from previous missions. They also inspected and detailed the condition of the station, dismantled experiments and retrieved sample cassettes.

The final Mir resident crew of Zaletin (left) and Kaleri was launched to the Station aboard Soyuz TM30

During their stay aboard Mir, the EO-28 crew was able to perform research in biomedicine, space sciences, materials sciences, Earth sciences and technology. While discussions went on about what mission would follow, the cosmonauts began to pack up their experiment results and prepare the station for a period of inactivity, as for only the fourth time in its history, it would be left without a crew. MirCorp had planned a period of inactivity after this flight to secure new funds and to plan future operations based on the reports and feedback from this recent mission. In the early hours of 16 June, the two cosmonauts undocked from Mir and prepared for their return journey, leaving Mir alone in orbit. The crew reported that the station was in good shape and that there seemed to be no reason why it could not be revisited again. Of course, the subject of raising the funds to support these revisits was not mentioned.

Delays in securing the funding resulted in launch schedule slippage. The first space tourist was announced as American Dennis Tito, who scheduled to visit the station in 2000. This slipped to 2001 and funding from MirCorp was not forthcoming. Energiya now looked to de-orbit the station in the spring of 2001 and a new Progress was launched to direct the station to a fiery re-entry. On 15 February 2001, the Mir base block celebrated its fifteenth year in space. To ensure it fell on unpopulated areas, the Progress engines were fired for 20 minutes on 23 March and again twice more on succeeding orbits. The station entered the atmosphere and burned up, with some of the larger items of debris falling into the Pacific some 3,000 km east of New Zealand. The final communique from the Russians was that “Mir ceased to exit.” It was time to

look towards ISS, but in the ten years between the arrival of the Soyuz TM8 crew on 7 September 1989 and the departure of the Soyuz TM29 crew on 27 August 1999, Mir had been occupied continuously for 3,640 days 22 hours 52 minutes, a record the ISS will not break until October 2010.

Milestones

216th manned space flight

89th Russian manned space flight

82nd manned Soyuz mission

29th manned Soyuz TM mission

28th and final Mir resident crew

35th Russian and 75th flight with EVA operations

1st mission funded under MirCorp

Flight Crew

HALSELL Jr., James Donald, 43, USAF, commander, 5th mission Previous missions: STS-65 (1994); STS-74 (1995); STS-83 (1997); STS-94 (1997) HOROWITZ, Scott Jay, 43, USAF, pilot, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-75 (1996); STS-82 (1997)

WEBER, Mary Ellen, 37, civilian, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-70 (1995)

WILLIAMS, Jeffery Nels, 42, USA, mission specialist 2

VOSS, James Shelton, 51, US Army, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission

Previous missions: STS-44 (1991); STS-53 (1992); STS-69 (1995)

HELMS, Susan Jane, 42, USAF, mission specialist 4, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-54 (1993); STS-64 (1994); STS-78 (1996)

USACHEV, Yuri Vladimirovich, 42, civilian, Russian, mission specialist 5,

3rd mission

Previous missions: Soyuz TM18 (1994); Soyuz TM23 (1996)

Flight Log

The delays in preparing the Russian Service Module meant that it would not be launched until July 2000. This gave rise to maintenance concerns with Unity/Zarya, which by now had been in orbit for over 12 months. Specifically, there was concern about the shelf life and reliability of Zarya’s batteries, which had not been designed to provide power for so long without the addition of the Service Module’s power systems. A crew had been assigned to STS-101 (2A.2) and the mission was due to follow the launch and docking of the Service Module prior to arrival of the first resident crew. But with the delay, it was decided to split the STS-101 mission and original crew between two flights. The revised STS-101 mission (designated 2A.2a) would fly first in April 2000, and then after the docking of the Russian Service Module

the new mission, STS-106 (2A.2b), would complete the preparations for receiving the first resident crew.

The original crew for STA-101 was Halsell, Horowitz, Weber and Williams, plus Ed Lu and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Boris Morukov. The two cosmonauts had trained extensively on SM systems and activation, including unload­ing the first Progress re-supply craft planned to dock to the SM shortly after it became part of the ISS. Lu and Malenchenko had also trained for an EVA together, so it seemed sensible to utilise this training to reassign them to the STS-106 mission after the launch of the SM and Progress. It was also decided that in order to further prepare the station by completing get-ahead tasks for the first resident crew, and to give the second resident crew experience aboard the station, the latter would fly to ISS aboard STS-101 as part of the Shuttle crew. This would also be of benefit in smoothing the hand-over operations between the first and second crew the following year. Therefore, Usachev, Voss and Helms found themselves visiting ISS a year earlier than planned.

The launch of STS-101 did not occur in April, thanks to three launch delays caused by high winds at KSC and the overseas emergency landing sites. The mission was designated a “home improvement house call” and after its eventual launch on 19 May, STS-101 docked with the station the following day. On 21 May, Williams (EV1) and Voss (EV2) performed the mission’s only EVA, of 6 hours 44 minutes, during which they secured the US-built crane and installed the final Strela units on PMA-1. After replacing a faulty communications antenna, they also installed hand­rails and a camera cable.

STS-101 remained docked to ISS for over 138 hours, with the hatches open for a total of 80 hours. During this time, the crew installed four new batteries and associated electronics in Zarya, as well as 10 new smoke detectors, four cooling fans, additional computer cables and a new communications memory unit and power distribution box for the US-built communications system. They also transferred over almost 1,500 kg of logistics into the Unity and Zarya modules, including clothing, tools, can openers, sewing kits, trash bags, a treadmill and exercise bicycle ergometer, an IMAX film camera and four 45-litre water containers for use by the resident crews. A further 590 kg of logistics was transferred the other way, back to Atlantis for return to Earth.

Prior to undocking, the orbit of ISS was boosted by a further 45 km by firing the onboard engines of Atlantis in three sessions. The new orbit was approximately 383 x 370 km. Once again, a fly-around of the station was performed after the orbiter undocked in order to photo-document the condition of the station.

Milestones

217th manned space flight 128th US manned space flight Shuttle mission 21st flight of Atlantis 3rd Shuttle ISS mission 1st Atlantis ISS mission

Flight Crew

BOWERSOX, Kenneth Duane, 45, USN, ISS-6 commander, 5th mission Previous missions: STS-50 (1990); STS-61 (1993); STS-73 (1995); STS-82 (1997) BUDARIN, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 49, civilian, Russian ISS-6 flight engineer and Soyuz commander, 3rd mission

Previous missions: Mir EO-19/STS-71 (1995); Soyuz TM27 (1998)

PETTIT, Donald Roy, 47, civilian, US ISS-6 science officer

Flight Log

The sixth resident crew for ISS had arrived aboard STS-113 and had expected a Shuttle landing at the end of their mission. However, the loss of Columbia and her crew on 1 February 2003 resulted in the Shuttle fleet being grounded and the crew having to use the TMA1 spacecraft for the landing. They were replaced by the ISS-7 “caretaker crew”, who arrived in TMA2. Shortly before launch on STS-113, the original NASA science officer, Don Thomas, was medically disqualified from the mission after reports stated that he had been subjected to sufficient radiation on his previous space flights that a long-duration flight could exceed his maximum allowable life time dose. Thomas was replaced by his back-up, Don Pettit who, due to the late change in the crew, had to wear the clothing already aboard the station and eat the menu already selected for Thomas. However, this was a minor issue to overcome as the crew settled down to a planned four-month tour. There were no planned visiting missions scheduled until the arrival of STS-114 to bring them home.

The science programme for this sixth residency included more than 20 new or existing investigations, for which the crew would devote over 240 hours to research time. The research fields included medicine, materials, plant science, commercial biotechnology and manufacturing. In addition, Don Pettit took time to include a series of science demonstrations that were supplemented by postings on the internet

and dubbed “Saturday Morning Science” (similar to those activities conducted during the Skylab 3 mission in 1973).

There were two EVAs accomplished during the mission, though only one was originally planned. The first should have included Budarin, who would have been the first Russian to perform an EVA in an American suit from Quest. However, the EVA was delayed from 12 December to 15 January when US medical specialists ruled that Budarin did not meet the criteria for US EVAs (although he was not disqualified by Russian doctors from conducting any Russian-based EVA!). He was replaced on the EVA by Pettit. The 15 January EVA (6 hours 51 minutes) saw the two Americans release the remaining launch restraint from the P1 Truss radiator system that had been delivered by STS-113. They then witnessed its deployment, controlled from MCC Houston. Inspection and cleaning occupied the next part of their EVA, which closed with the retrieval of tools for a storage box on the Z1 Truss, and a health check on the ammonia reserves delivered in 2001 and stored on the P6 Truss. EVA 2 was added after the loss of the Columbia and conducted on 8 April (6 hours 26 minutes) to ensure that the next crew would only need to perform an EVA to deal with an emergency. The two astronauts reconfigured cables and continued external outfitting of the station pending the resumption of assembly flights. In addition to connecting electrical conduits, the crew inspected faulty heater cables, replaced a failed power control module on the MT and rerouted two of the four CMG cables on the Z1 Truss, as well as completing several smaller chores and get-ahead tasks.

Progress M1-9 was undocked from the station on 1 February, the same day that the crew were told of the loss of Columbia and the day before their new Progress re­supply craft was launched. Progress M47 arrived on 4 February to deliver 2,568 kg of various cargos to restock the station. There was 870 kg of propellant, 70 kg of water, 50 kg of oxygen and 1,328 kg of dry cargo. Significantly more limited than the payload capability of the Shuttle, it would nonetheless be these unmanned re-supply missions that would be crucial to maintaining operations at ISS over the next two to three years. The engines of Progress M47 were also used to reboost the station’s orbit slightly.

TMA2 docked with the station on 28 April, carrying a two-man crew to take over the residency. The ISS-6 crew departed on 3 May in TMA1, with a severely restricted return payload capability. A computer failure led to a highly ballistic descent and resulted in the spacecraft landing far off target. The crew experienced almost 8 G during the entry. It took over two hours for rescue teams to reach the crew, who had exited the Descent Module. They had been unable to communicate due to a broken antenna on the DM, so in future, all crews would be issued with mobile satellite phones. Pettit was much the worst for wear of the three crew members after the landing, being photographed sitting on the ground looking clearly distressed and taking longer to recover than his colleagues. The problem was traced to the yaw gyroscope experiencing a gimbal lock when its angular rate exceeded 54 degrees. The crew were praised for their professionalism, and changes would be incorporated from TMA3 to prevent the problem re-occurring. Of course, TMA2 was already in orbit.

Milestones

6th ISS resident crew

5th ISS EO crew to be launched by Shuttle

1st return to Earth in Soyuz (TMA) by NASA astronauts (Bowersox/Pettit) 1st NASA astronauts to return to Earth in a non-US spacecraft

Flight Crew

HUSBAND, Rick Douglas, 45, USAF, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-96 (2000)

McCOOL, William Cameron, 41, USN, pilot BROWN, David McDowell, 46, USN, mission specialist 1 CHAWLA, Kalpana, 41, civilian, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-87 (1997)

ANDERSON, Michael, 43, USAF, mission specialist 3, payload commander, 2nd mission

Previous mission: STS-89 (1998)

CLARK, Laurel Blair Salton, 41, USN, mission specialist 4 RAMON, Ilan, 48, Israeli Air Force, payload specialist 1

Flight Log

The STS-107 research mission had been delayed several times due to changes in the manifest. In June 1997, a research module flight was scheduled for the third quarter of 2000. This was a dedicated mission to train scientists to take full advantage of the ISS research capabilities and to reduce the gap between the last planned Shuttle Spacelab science mission (STS-90) and the start of in-depth science research aboard ISS (around 2001). In 1998, STS-107, a multi-discipline flight, was scheduled for launch in 2000 with a follow-on mission authorised in 2001. In October 2002, the second mission was cancelled and the funds reallocated to support STS-107. The original schedule proposed the mission’s launch on 11 January 2001, but it would be two years and 13 delays before the flight finally lifted off on 16 January 2003. Though there were many delays, only a few were orbiter-related, specifically the removal of the Triana

Earth observation satellite and its replacement with the Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science, Technology, Applications and Research (FREESTAR) payload and an extension of Columbia’s Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) by six months to correct problems with wiring. This saw the STS-109 Hubble service mission given higher priority. After Columbia had returned from STS-109 in March 2002, preparations began for the STS-107 mission, which was planned for 11 July. However, when cracks were found in a propellant duct liner aboard Atlantis, checks were made on the rest of the fleet and similar cracks were found on Columbia. The necessary repair work was accomplished during the summer, but this pushed the STS-107 mission into the new year.

STS-107 marked the first flight of the Research DM SpaceHab configuration. This was a modification to the basic single or double module used for research and logistics. The RDM, outfitted as a laboratory, could carry 61 Space Shuttle lockers (27.2 kg of experiments) and six double racks (635 kg of experiments). It had two viewing ports and facilities to carry experiments on its flat external top surface. The STS-107 RDM included nine commercial payloads, four ESA payloads linked to ISS risk mitigation experiments, and 18 NASA Office of Biological and Physical Research payloads. On top of the module were three technology experiments and in the payload bay were six further experiments, including the FREESTAR that carried space physics and space sciences experiments and 11 student experiments from schools across the US. This was an international payload, with experiments sponsored by NASA, the US commercial sector, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency, the German Space Agency, the USAF, and schools in Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Liechten­stein and the USA. The crew were kept very busy conducting all these experiments, operating double twelve-hour shift pattern, with Husband, Chawla, Clark and Ramon forming the Red Shift and McCool, Brown and Anderson the Blue Shift. The return from the experiments and research onboard the RDM and the comments from the astronauts themselves all indicated a highly successful flight, and there was a strong possibility that a re-flight may have been authorised, based on the quality and quantity of the experiments conducted on this flight.

When Columbia started the return home on 1 February, it appeared to have been another highly successful mission and there were high hopes for the future US space programme and continued research on ISS. However, 16 minutes from the planned landing at the Cape, all contact with the crew was lost. The vehicle had broken up in mid-air high above east Texas, claiming the lives of all seven astronauts. What followed was a seven-month enquiry, including a four-month search across Texas and neighbouring states to recover debris from the tragedy. Almost 85,000 items of orbiter debris were shipped to KSC for reconstruction to assist in determining what had caused the loss of the vehicle and her crew. Approximately 38 per cent of the dry weight of OV-102 was eventually recovered.

Post-flight investigations indicated that a piece of foam insulation had become detached from the ET at launch and had struck the orbiter’s left wing as it ascended, creating either damage or a hole that seriously compromised the structural and thermal integrity of the vehicle at that point. Analysis of post-launch footage of the incident, as well as internal emails concerning the integrity of the vehicle, seemed to have underestimated the severity of the collision. STS-107 carried no RMS and there was no provision for EVA. Nor was the mission due to visit ISS, so there was no easy way of conducting an external inspection of the vehicle. When telemetry indi­cated to ground controllers that there was an off-nominal situation during the return to Earth, it was too late to do anything about it as the fiery plasma of re-entry breached the damaged wing and ripped Columbia apart. The tragedy, the second fatal Shuttle mission of the programme, came just days after the still-painful anni­versaries of the loss of the Apollo 1 crew (27 January 1967) and the Challenger crew (28 January 1986). It also signalled the end of the Shuttle programme, with the fleet scheduled to be decommissioned in 2010. In the meantime, it would be a long and difficult job to maintain the ISS and a hard, painful two-and-a-half-year effort to restore the Shuttle to flight. Even then, the uncertainties remained.

Milestones

237th manned space flight

143rd US manned space flight

113th Shuttle mission

28th and last flight of Columbia

15th SpaceHab mission (9th double module)

1st flight of the Research DM (RDM) SpaceHab configuration 1st Israeli citizen in space (Ramon)

2nd Shuttle mission to end in fatalities

This table lists all the manned space flights that were official astro-flights (X-15); X-Prize (Spaceship One); sub-orbital (Mercury-Redstone); launch pad aborts (Soyuz T10-1) and missions in progress (Soyuz 18-1; STS 51-L; STS-107). For space station residents and visiting missions, where crews have launched separately but returned on the same vehicle, individual durations are shown below the specific return mission.

12/04/61

05/05/61 (sub-orbital) 21/07/61 (sub-orbital) 06/08/61-07/08/61

20/02/62

24/05/62

17/07/62

11/08/62-15/08/62

12/08/62-15/08/62

03/10/62

17/01/63

15/05/63-16/05/63

14/06/63-19/06/63

16/06/63-19/06/63

27/06/63

19/07/63

22/08/63

12/10/64-13/10/64

18/03/65-19/03/65

23/03/65

03/06/65-07/06/65

29/06/65

10/08/65

21/08/65-29/08/65

29/09/65

14/10/65

04/12/65-16/12/65

15/12/65-16/12/65 01:01:51:54 16/03/66 00:10:41:26 03/06/66-06/06/66 03:00:20:50 18/07/66-21/07/66 02:22:46:39 12/09/66-15/09/66 02:23:17:08 01/11/66 00:00:10:00 (astro-flight) 11/11/66-16/11/66 03:22:34:31 27/01/67 (fatal pad fire prior to launch date) 23/04/67-24/04/67 01:02:47:52 17/10/67 00:00:10:00 (astro-flight) 15/11/67 00:00:10:00 (astro-flight – fatal) 21/08/68 00:00:10:00 (astro-flight) 11/10/68-22/10/68 10:20:09:03 26/10/68-30/10/68 03:22:50:45 21/12/68-28/12/68 06:03:00:42 14/01/69-17/01/69 02:23:20:47 15/01/69-18/01/69 03:00:54:15 (Yeliseyev/Khrunov 01:23:45:50) 03/03/69-13/03/69 10:01:00:54 18/05/69-26/05/69 08:00:03:23 16/07/69-24/07/69 08:03:18:35 11/10/69-16/10/69 04:22:42:47 12/10/69-17/10/69 04:22:40:23 13/10/69-18/10/69 04:22:50:49 14/11/69-24/11/69 10:04:36:25

54:41

58:55

01:57

45:54

21:43

11:53

51:25

51:59

49:49

09:04

15:32

15:37

55:35

30:28

12:11

23:35

19:45

21:27 (launch phase abort)

20:08

30:51

28:24

23:32

52:17

06:35

04:23:38:50

04:00:56:27

05:01:00:09

166:06:58:16

04:23:39:21

05:00:06:48

10:21:00:36

179:01:17:57

04:10:18:22

05:01:16:06

130:20:35:51

04:02:10:04

04:21:54:31

08:23:05:08 175:01:51:42 (Akiyama 07:21:54:40)

05:23:32:44 08:07:22:23 144:15:21:50 (Sharman 07:21:14:20) (Krikalev 311:20:01:54) 09:02:14:20

08:21:21:25

05:08:27:38

175:02:52:43

(Aubakirov/Viehbock 07:22:12:59)

During the 1940s and 1950s, proposals for rocket-propelled aircraft designed to exceed the speed of sound were instigated in several countries. The most successful were the American X-series of aircraft, which included the X-1 that broke the sound barrier (Mach 1) in October 1947 and the X-15 hypersonic research aircraft. The X-20 was a USAF proposal for a one-man orbital space plane which would have been rocket-launched, but would have landed on a runway utilising the technique of dynamic soaring, hence its nickname – the DynaSoar. The concept never flew. Similar designs were developed in the Soviet Union and both countries eventually used the technology to develop a manned reusable space shuttle, though the Soviet craft (Buran) only flew one short unmanned mission in 1988.

X-15 – A winged marvel

The X-15 programme began in 1954 and three aircraft were constructed. The pro­gramme was designed to provide data on aerodynamics, structural and control prob­lems, and the physiological aspects of high-speed, high-altitude flight. Once these primary objectives had been met and exceeded, the programme began to gather data from various experiments and materials carried by the X-15 to the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere, many of which helped in the development of techniques and material for future programmes such as Apollo and the Space Shuttle. To assist in meeting this new objective the second aircraft was modified (after a serious accident in 1962), improving its performance to attain speeds of Mach 8 and support the development of supersonic combustion ramjet engines (scramjets).

Measuring 50 feet (15.24 metres) long and with a short stubby wingspan of 22 feet (6.70 metres), the X-15 featured a wedge-shaped vertical tail. The vehicle weighed about 14,000 lbs (6,350.4 kg) unfuelled and 34,000 lbs (15,422.40 kg) with a full fuel load. The high speeds that the X-15 would attain posed a problem for protecting the structural skin of the aircraft. This was solved with a heat-resistant skin made from Inconel-X nickel-steel alloy over a titanium and stainless steel structure. Control during atmospheric flight was by conventional aerodynamic control surfaces, but “in space’’, eight hydrogen-peroxide thrusters on the nose controlled the pitch and yaw, with a further four on the wings used for roll control. Difficulties with the X-15’s primary propulsion system (Thiokol XLR99) resulted in the decision to use two Reaction Motors XLR11 rocket engines for the initial powered test flights. Each XLR11 engine produced 2,000 lb (907.2 kg) of thrust. The manually-controlled XLR99 rocket engine had a thrust of about 60,000 lbs (27,216 kg).

Air-launched from under the wing of a B-52 at about 45,000 ft (13,700 metres) at an air speed of 500 mph (804.5 kph), the rocket motor was ignited by the pilot after dropping from the B-52 wing and burned for about 80 seconds. There were two flight profiles. The one for high altitude included a steep rate of climb while the other was used for level attitude high-speed objectives. Each free-flight lasted for about 10-11 minutes, mostly unpowered, and at the peak altitude of the astro-flights, only two or three minutes of “weightlessness” was experienced. However, the pilots did get a clear view of the curvature of the Earth’s surface and the blackness of space above the thin layer of the atmosphere. The X-15’s landing gear consisted of rear skids and a nose wheel, and landings were usually at about 200 mph (321.8 kph).